mitmesõnalistes

Mitmesõnalistes is a term used in Estonian linguistics to refer to multiword expressions—language units that consist of more than one word and function as a single lexical item. The phrase is formed from mitme-, meaning “many,” and sõnaline, meaning “word-related.” In grammatical texts, mitmesõnalistes väljendites or mitmesõnalistes is used to describe these units in various cases, including the inessive form mitmesõnalistes.

Mitmesõnalised väljendid belong to the broader field of phraseology and cover idioms, fixed expressions, and collocations. They are often semantically or syntactically more autonomous than free combinations of words, and their meanings cannot always be deduced from the meanings of the constituent words. They may exhibit fixed word order, idiomatic semantics, or predictable patterns that contrast with fully productive, compositional word groups.

A key distinction is between mitmesõnalised väljendid and liitsõnad (compound words). Liitsõnad are single lexical items formed by combining morphemes into one word, whereas mitmesõnalised väljendid retain multiple words and are analyzed as holistic units or phrases rather than as single compounds. This distinction matters for morphosyntax, inflection, and language processing, as mitmesõnalised väljendid can inflect or adapt as a whole, while their parts may not independently carry the same grammatical information.

In practice, the study of mitmesõnaliste väljendite helps explain phenomena such as variability in word order, idiomatic interpretation, and the interaction of phrase-level meaning with sentence structure. See also: phraseology, idiom, collocation, Estonian language.