förleden

Förleden is a term used in Swedish linguistics to describe the first element of a compound word. It functions as a modifier that contributes meaning to the whole word, while the second element, known as the slutled, carries the core lexical meaning. Together, the förled and sluts form a solid unit whose overall sense is often predictable from its parts.

The förleden can be a free morpheme (a word that can stand alone) or a bound morpheme acting as a prefix within compounds. In Swedish, many everyday compounds are built from substantives or adjectives in the förled, paired with a noun in the slutled. Common semantic fields for förled include place, time, material, and function. For example, in stadshus (city hall) the förled stad indicates a relation to a city, while hus denotes a building; in solros (sunflower) sol is the for-led indicating the sun in relation to the flower.

Word formation with förled shows variation across historical periods and dialects. Some förled originate from Old Norse or other Germanic sources, and over time they may lose independence or become more tightly integrated into the compound. In some cases, the boundary between förled and slutled is clear, while in others it can be blurred, especially in multisyllabic or semi-fixed terms.

In linguistic analysis, distinguishing förled from sluts helps explain compound semantics, syntactic behavior, and how new words are created or borrowed. See also slutled, sammansättning (compounding), and ordbildning (word formation).