Synapsia

Synapsy (Greek synapsis 'connection') describes a special way of forming compound words in grammar . The term was introduced by Emile Benveniste (1967) to describe French.

In German, a typical case of word composition ( composition ) is that a “determination word” comes before a “basic word” so that the right part of the composition contains the term that is more precisely defined or restricted (the basic word, also as Head of compound). Example: front door. In French, on the other hand, there are often word combinations that are arranged in the same way as a word combination in a sentence, e.g. B. machine-à-calculer 'calculating machine', arc-en-ciel 'rainbow'. Here, the determining component is therefore on the right-hand side and the basic word on the left (the other way around than in the German translations).

This type of example, with word order as in the sentence and including connecting words (e.g. prepositions), as in machine-à-calculer, are the cases that Benveniste calls synapsia. They are again differentiated from other non-standard compounds, where the defining word is also on the right-hand side, but where the structure does not show a rigid syntactic connection, e.g. marteau-pilon ' Fallhammer ' (literally: Hammer-Schlegel, i.e. 'Schlegelhammer ').

Due to the definition presented, the term synapsia has similarities with certain cases of contraction in German grammar.

swell

• Gaston Gross: Les expressions figées en français. Noms composés et autres locutions. Editions Ophrys, Paris 1996 (see above p. 5).