Abstract:
In Slovene word-formational theory, the term univerbation has not been a subject of theoretical studies and discussion until the first decade of the 21st century. Theoretical discussions of univerbiation have been more active in other Slavic languages, although these discussions do not offer a unified understanding or terminology of the concept of univerbation.
The Slovene term closest to univerbation is the expression poenobesedenje (‘turning into a single word’) used by Toporišič in the Enciklopedija slovenskega jezika ‘Encyclopaedia of the Slovene language’, although it is clear from the given explanation that Toporišič’s understanding of univerbation is very broad. The term defined more narrowly and corresponding to the established interpretation in Slavic linguistics is first used in contemporary Slovene lexicographic practice in the Slovar novejšega besedja ‘Dictionary of new words’ (SNB 2012). Here the concept of is interpreted as turning an established word phrase (a syntagm) into a single word (a derived word) mostly with the use of suffixation. Taking this into account, the paper looks at the entries from the Slovar novejšega besedja (‘Dictionary of new words’) which include the explanation “unverbiated from”, with the purpose of presenting the characteristics of the syntactic base, word-formational base, affixes and semantic properties of such formations.
