Varför smörgåsar och inte smörgäss? Om problemet med oregelbunden plural i sammansättningar
(2020) In Språk och Stil NF 30. p.117-142- Abstract
- The plural -ar in smörgåsar for smörgås ‘sandwich’ is regular – even though gås ‘goose’, here used as a simplex, takes an irregular plural, gäss ‘geese’. Why is the form smörgäss not used? Similarly, for trefot, lit. three foot, ‘tripod’, neither trefotar nor the irregular trefötter seems right. To use an irregular plural in such compounds tends to evoke a core reading (“kärnbetydelse”) of the right-hand segment: a “bird reading” for smörgäss and a “human foot reading” for trefötter ‘tripods’. On the other hand, plurals, such as gåsar and fotar sound unknowledgeable. The choice of a plural form may thus present a normative problem. This article investigates how SAOL 14 (2015), The Swedish Academy word list, and Svensk Ordbok (2009) handle... (More)
- The plural -ar in smörgåsar for smörgås ‘sandwich’ is regular – even though gås ‘goose’, here used as a simplex, takes an irregular plural, gäss ‘geese’. Why is the form smörgäss not used? Similarly, for trefot, lit. three foot, ‘tripod’, neither trefotar nor the irregular trefötter seems right. To use an irregular plural in such compounds tends to evoke a core reading (“kärnbetydelse”) of the right-hand segment: a “bird reading” for smörgäss and a “human foot reading” for trefötter ‘tripods’. On the other hand, plurals, such as gåsar and fotar sound unknowledgeable. The choice of a plural form may thus present a normative problem. This article investigates how SAOL 14 (2015), The Swedish Academy word list, and Svensk Ordbok (2009) handle this conflict, and compares their recommendations to the actual use of such forms on the Internet. It also presents an answer as to why irregular plural forms can be problematic in compounds: An irregular plural (mediated by a lexical class marker) fixates the meaning of word-sized phrasal constituents to the core meaning of the root. This meaning is retained in compounds. For compounds that do not have a determinative reading, a conflict may arise, for example between the conventional plural of fot, fötter – crucially with the meaning ‘human feet’ –, and the meaning of trefot ‘tripod’, which does not involve human feet. Apart from N+N compounds an extension is made to adjectival and verbal compounds, and also to simplex words. (Less)
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https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/cdaa95a4-b7ce-492c-8950-d95def7695b2
- author
- Josefsson, Gunlög LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2020
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Språk och Stil
- volume
- NF 30
- pages
- 117 - 142
- publisher
- Institutionen för nordiska språk, Uppsala universitet
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85100246068
- ISSN
- 1101-1165
- DOI
- 10.33063/diva-427677
- language
- Swedish
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- cdaa95a4-b7ce-492c-8950-d95def7695b2
- date added to LUP
- 2020-09-04 22:10:11
- date last changed
- 2022-04-19 00:39:19
@article{cdaa95a4-b7ce-492c-8950-d95def7695b2,
abstract = {{The plural -ar in smörgåsar for smörgås ‘sandwich’ is regular – even though gås ‘goose’, here used as a simplex, takes an irregular plural, gäss ‘geese’. Why is the form smörgäss not used? Similarly, for trefot, lit. three foot, ‘tripod’, neither trefotar nor the irregular trefötter seems right. To use an irregular plural in such compounds tends to evoke a core reading (“kärnbetydelse”) of the right-hand segment: a “bird reading” for smörgäss and a “human foot reading” for trefötter ‘tripods’. On the other hand, plurals, such as gåsar and fotar sound unknowledgeable. The choice of a plural form may thus present a normative problem. This article investigates how SAOL 14 (2015), The Swedish Academy word list, and Svensk Ordbok (2009) handle this conflict, and compares their recommendations to the actual use of such forms on the Internet. It also presents an answer as to why irregular plural forms can be problematic in compounds: An irregular plural (mediated by a lexical class marker) fixates the meaning of word-sized phrasal constituents to the core meaning of the root. This meaning is retained in compounds. For compounds that do not have a determinative reading, a conflict may arise, for example between the conventional plural of fot, fötter – crucially with the meaning ‘human feet’ –, and the meaning of trefot ‘tripod’, which does not involve human feet. Apart from N+N compounds an extension is made to adjectival and verbal compounds, and also to simplex words.}},
author = {{Josefsson, Gunlög}},
issn = {{1101-1165}},
language = {{swe}},
pages = {{117--142}},
publisher = {{Institutionen för nordiska språk, Uppsala universitet}},
series = {{Språk och Stil}},
title = {{Varför smörgåsar och inte smörgäss? Om problemet med oregelbunden plural i sammansättningar}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.33063/diva-427677}},
doi = {{10.33063/diva-427677}},
volume = {{NF 30}},
year = {{2020}},
}