Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1984, Side 167

Af hassistum og kontóristum
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SUMMARY
This paper reports on a computer-aided study of word-formation types in two
different Icelandic dictionaries; a Dictionary of Slang (Mörður Árnason, Svavar
Sigmundsson & Örnólfur Thorsson 1982, henceforth SD) and a forthcoming Dic-
tionary of Financial Terms (henceforth FD). The author maintains that these may
be taken as representative of ‘productive’ and ‘learned’ word-formation, respect-
ively.
It turns out to be a great difference between the word types of the two dic-
tionaries. There are a few suffixes that are only used in the FD; these are mostly
native Icelandic suffixes which have otherwise become unproductive. Other suf-
fixes are only used in the SD; they are of foreign origin (such as -sjón, from -tion)
and do not seem to have been accepted in the standard or official language.
Another word-formation typical for the SD, but nonoccurring in the FD is
exemplified by words such as lögga, from lögregla ‘police’. The main characteris-
tics of this type are that only one syllable of the original word is preserved (usually
the first, but sometimes also the second or third, as in letti, from Chevrolet), and
the postvocalic consonant is lengthened (which also may create conditions for
phonological rules such as preaspiration). This type of word-formation is well
known from pet names such as Sigurður - Siggi, Kristján - Stjáni.
One significant difference between the two dictionaries is that in the SD 56%
of the stems consist only of one root and no affixes, compared to only 2.4% in the
FD. The average word length is also much greater in the FD; 13.5 characters per
word compared to 8.44 in the SD.
Máltölvun,
Háskóla íslands,
Reykjavík