Abstract
Abstract In Swedish as in all North Germanic languages, compounding is an important word formation process which has been active over the centuries. This is manifested by a large number of lexicalized (established) compounds (such as leksak ‘toy’`, välsigna ‘to bless’`). Among the 500 most frequent words in newspaper texts, 48 were lexicalized compounds (Allén 1972). It is normal that about a fifth of the words in a text are compounds. Innovative compounding occurs frequently in Swedish. It is demonstrated, for instance, by the abundance of compounds (more than 50%) in a dictionary of new words in Swedish (Nyord 1986). Children learn to use and analyze compounds before the age of two (Mellenius forthc). Looking back in time we find lexicalized as well as what seems to have been, at that time, newly-formed compounds in runic inscriptions from about 1000 A.D., e.g. stœinbro ‘stone bridge’`, fulldrœngila ‘very manly’`, grikkhafn ‘Greek harbor’` (Peterson 1989).
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