Orð og tunga - 26.04.2018, Page 131

120 Orð og tunga
þjóðskjalasafn íslands
BC/4
BC/5
BC/6–7
BC/8–9
Lykilorð
19. aldar íslenska, nýyrði, saga orða, orðmyndun, samsett orð
Keywords
19th-century Icelandic, neologisms, word history, word formation, compounds
Abstract
This article deals with the history and word formation of the Icelandic word for
‘police’, i.e. lögregla. The word constitutes an interesting case of word formation in
that said lexeme is a dvandva compound whose creation is related to the expression
að halda uppi lögum og reglu ‘to maintain law and order’. Moreover, it is argued that
the word has arisen in the wake of the Icelandic purist movement in the first half
of the 19th century, and that its creator is Konráð Gíslason, who was at the time a
member of the Icelandic Literary Society (Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag) and editor
of the journal Fjölnir.
According to the sources, the word, lögregla, cannot have been formed as an
independent lexical item. In fact, the word appears first in a compound with maður
‘man’, meaning ‘policeman’ or, more precisely, ‘a man who is in charge of maintaining
law and order’. It is argued that lögregla has in fact been created in order to gradually
substitute the Danish loanword pólití, first in compounds such as pólitímaður and
pólitíþjónn ‘policeman’, and then as a single lexeme. The Danish loanword pólití had a
twofold meaning: ‘policeman’ and ‘police’. Moreover, it is argued that lögregla, as an
unbound lexeme, was initially a shortened form for lögreglumaður, and later assumed
the general meaning ‘police force’ by means of synecdoche (pars pro toto).
Matt eo Tarsi
mat17@hi.is
Háskóla Íslands
ORCID-númer: orcid.org/0000-0001-6548-7874
tunga_20.indb 120 12.4.2018 11:50:51