Optical properties of quasars - II. Emission-line geometry and radio properties.

We make use of the spectrophotometric data presented in Paper I to investigate the optical properties of radio-loud quasars. We briefly review the evidence for anisotropic emission from quasars. From our data we argue that Fe II line emission, Hβ line emission and optical continuum emission are all anisotropic, and attempt to clarify the degree of anisotropy of each component by correlations with the degree of radio core dominance. The width of the Hβ line and Balmer decrements are shown to be consistent with a two-component model for Hβ emission. The correlation between the equivalent width of the [O III] narrow line and R is investigated. Finally, we discuss profiles of narrow lines and suggest that line shape is related to R in a manner that suggests an axisymmetric distribution for the narrow-line clouds.