Setningarleg

Setningarleg is an Icelandic adjective that literally translates as "syntactic" or "grammatical". It is used primarily in linguistic contexts to describe properties, forms, or behaviors of language that are concerned with sentence structure rather than with isolated words or lexicon. The word comes from the Icelandic noun setning, meaning "sentence", combined with the suffix -leg, which indicates a qualitative relationship.

In syntax studies, setningarleg phenomena include phenomena such as word order, agreement, subordination, coordination, and the use of particles. For example, when an Icelandic linguist says that a certain verb phrase is setningarleg, they are noting that its acceptability depends on its fit within the syntactic framework of a sentence, not merely on the semantics of the individual word. This contrasts with setningabærandi, which would refer to the meaning-bearing qualities of words.

The term is used in Icelandic academic literature, textbooks, and language description to delineate analyses that focus on the hierarchical arrangement of phrases and clauses. It is sometimes translated into English as "syntactic" or "grammatical" in scholarly articles. Although primarily used by linguists, the root word setning is familiar to general Icelandic speakers, and the adjective can be found in less technical texts when discussing how sentences are formed.