Potonganpotongan

Potonganpotongan is a noun form in Indonesian derived from the word potongan, which means a piece, fragment, or cut. The concatenated form potonganpotongan is a less common or stylistic variant of the more typical potongan-potongan, which uses reduplication to indicate plurality or distribution of multiple pieces. In standard writing, the hyphenated form potongan-potongan is usually preferred to signal the plural sense clearly.

Morphology and usage

In Indonesian, reduplication (pengulangan) is a common way to express repetition, plurality, or a scattered set of items. Potonganpotongan follows this pattern, conveying the idea of “pieces of various items” or “a collection of fragments.” The closed form potonganpotongan may appear in creative writing, headlines, or brand names, but most everyday usage relies on the hyphenated potongan-potongan to avoid ambiguity.

Domains of use

In culinary contexts, potongan-potongan refers to diced or chopped pieces, such as potongan-potongan daging or potongan-potongan sayuran. In literary or journalistic contexts, it can describe fragments of text or quotes, as in potongan-potongan teks or potongan-potongan wawancara. In payroll or budgeting, the term can be extended metaphorically to refer to multiple deductions, as in potongan-potongan gaji, though this usage tends to appear in specific administrative language rather than general speech.

See also

Reduplication in Indonesian grammar; potongan (cut/piece); Indonesian vocabulary related to fragments and pieces.