Probleemkohti tänapäeva eesti keele vormimoodustuses
Issues in Modern Estonian morphology

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses various aspects of the description of Modern Estonian morphology in dictionaries published by the Institute of the Estonian Language. The rich system of declension and conjugation in Estonian, characterized by numerous exceptions, is constantly evolving, presenting language planners with a recurring challenge: whether to follow ongoing changes or to preserve the status quo. In morphology, the search for a balance between stability and change is reflected primarily in the acceptance of parallel forms and paradigms. The codification of morphological norms in Estonian lexicography has been primarily tied to the compilation of the Dictionaries of Standard Estonian, which long served as the principal dictionaries of the literary language. This article discusses morphological issues that have emerged primarily during the compilation of the largest dictionary of modern Estonian, the EKI Combined Dictionary (Langemets et al., 2021). The introductory section provides a brief overview of how morphological information has been presented in Dictionaries of Standard Estonian, spanning from the first edition published in 1918 to the most recent one released in 2025, as well as in various types of monolingual dictionaries published by the Institute of the Estonian Language since the 1980s. It also discusses the role and principles of language committees – the Committee of the Estonian Literary Society (1907–1940), the Estonian Orthological Committee (1960–1993), and the Committee of the Mother Tongue Society (1993–present) – in the codification of morphological norms. The article then examines specific topics related to the generation of complete declension and conjugation paradigms, as well as to resolving inconsistencies between normative and actual usage. These include the codification of individual words; the blending of paradigms caused by discrepancies between the pronunciation and spelling of foreign words; the declension of -el and -er ending words with disyllabic nominative in the third/overlong quantity; the declension of -ing ending foreign and unadapted foreign words; parallel paradigms arising from semantic differences; and the paradigms of compound words, abbreviations, and symbols.

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