Jonnakas kostuma
Kostuma and kostma: A century’s journey to synonyms

Summary/Abstract: The u-reflexive kostuma ‘to be heard’ of the reflexive verb kostma ‘to be heard’ and other verbs with -uma ending began to spread in Estonian in the first half of the 20th century. Estonian linguist Johannes Aavik revived the use of u-reflexives during the Estonian language renewal, but he also established a rule in the 1920s to prevent the use of u-derivatives created from reflexive verbs (such as kostma > kostuma, pleekima > pleekuma ‘to fade’). During the century, this rule was copied in both grammar and school textbooks, without taking into account the actual use of language. However, as the data of various text corpora show, this rule has not been adopted in the use of language for a century. According to the recommendation of the corpus planning, it is now appropriate to use the verb kostuma in the sense of ‘to be heard’ in written language in addition to the verb kostma. The same has been done with other u-derivatives previously considered inappropriate.

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