# Norwegian: de aller fleste



## timtfj

Sentence

_*De aller fleste* fysikere tror ikke nøytrinoer kan reise raskere enn lyset. _(Shortened version of the opening sentence of this article on the forskning.no website.)
Question

What is the function of *aller* in *de aller fleste fysikere*?
My stab at it

*De fleste* fysikere = *most* physicists
*De aller fleste* fysikere = *virtually all* physicists
*Aller* is used to intensify a superlative, and in this case it means something like "_Most_ isn't a strong enough word. In fact, it's pretty well all of them."
(Note that in English, emphasising _most_ in speech would have the opposite effect: it would mean "most, but by no means all". But in the context of physicists and the speed of light, that seems a very unlikely meaning.)

Er det riktig? 

Unnskyldning at jeg spør på engelsk---norsken min strekker ikke til å skrive spørsmalet helt klart og å være sikker at jeg forstår svarene helt riktig. (Men minst, ikke til å være sikker at jeg er sikker . . . )

Mange takk,
Tim


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## NorwegianNYC

timtfj said:


> Sentence
> 
> _*De aller fleste* fysikere tror ikke nøytrinoer kan reise raskere enn lyset. _(Shortened version of the opening sentence of this article on the forskning.no website.)
> Question
> 
> What is the function of *aller* in *de aller fleste fysikere*?
> My stab at it
> 
> *De fleste* fysikere = *most* physicists
> *De aller fleste* fysikere = *virtually all* physicists
> *Aller* is used to intensify a superlative, and in this case it means something like "_Most_ isn't a strong enough word. In fact, it's pretty well all of them."
> (Note that in English, emphasising _most_ in speech would have the opposite effect: it would mean "most, but by no means all". But in the context of physicists and the speed of light, that seems a very unlikely meaning.)
> 
> Er det riktig?
> 
> Unnskyldning at jeg spør på engelsk---norsken min strekker ikke til å skrive spørsmalet helt klart og å være sikker at jeg forstår svarene helt riktig. (Men minst, ikke til å være sikker at jeg er sikker . . . )
> 
> Mange takk,
> Tim



Time: Yes, it is used to emphasis and limit the scope of the superlative, and is usually in plural indefinite. However, there is no rule saying it HAS TO be indefinite, but in most setting you will find it is.


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## hanne

Aller- is used to emphasise superlatives, as you suspected. It can be used for both increasing and decreasing size: allerstørste, allerminste, allerbeste (hope I got the spelling right).

However, putting "aller fleste" in two words looks like a mistake to me. At least in Danish it's a prefix, not a word on its own.

You don't need to apologise for writing in English, on the Nordic forum any language is allowed when asking questions.


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## timtfj

The Norwegian Språkrådet dictionary entry seems to leave a space though, and says *aller* is an adverb, so I think Norwegian might not be the same as Danish here. Can a Norwegian clarify?

But thinking of it as a prefix is very helpful. I was giving equal weight to *aller* and *fleste* and trying to work out what each one did in the phrase. Treating aller( )fleste as a single word also helps explain why it's followed by an indefinite noun---it just becomes an instance of <definite adjective> + <indefinite noun> rather than a mysteriously-structured phrase.


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## timtfj

NorwegianNYC said:


> Time: Yes, it is used to emphasis and limit the scope of the superlative, and is usually in plural indefinite. However, there is no rule saying it HAS TO be indefinite, but in most setting you will find it is.


So if I interpret *de aller fleste fysikere* as _virtually all physicists_ or at least as _nearly all physicists_ I've got it about right?

I'd like to know more about the choice of definite or indefinite too, but since that's a separate(-ish) issue I've asked about it in a new thread here.


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## Ben Jamin

hanne said:


> However, putting "aller fleste" in two words looks like a mistake to me. At least in Danish it's a prefix, not a word on its own.


Aller is a separate word in Norwegian.


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## Dan2

hanne said:


> Aller- is used to emphasise superlatives ... At least in Danish it's a prefix, not a word on its own.


Also a prefix, same spelling, basically same meaning, in German.

The Haugen dictionary agrees with Ben Jamin - separate word in Norwegian.

I also came across the word "allergitest"; my first thought was, what is "gitest" the superlative of?


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## timtfj

Språkrådet is the Norwegian Language Council, who as I understand it are the people who actually _decide_ what's correct or incorrect in bokmål. So I think their dictionary (link in my post #4 above) is the definitive one and if they say *aller* is a separate word, then it is. But it would be good to hear from an actual Norwegian-speaking Norwegian on this, in case what's official is only one side of the story. They do include unofficial-but-acceptable forms too, so the fact that *allerfleste* isn't there at all suggests that it either isn't used or isn't common.

My doubt comes from the fact that they abbreviate *aller* to *a-* throughout the entry, making it slightly less clear whether it can be joined to the next word. All their examples have a space after *a-*, though, which I take to mean that it is separate.


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## NorwegianNYC

*Aller* is always separate in Norwegian. The word is self is actually an old plural possessive of 'all' (Eng. _all_), so *de aller fleste fysikere* technically means "the most of all of the physicists"


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## timtfj

NorwegianNYC said:


> *Aller* is always separate in Norwegian. The word is self is actually an old plural possessive of 'all' (Eng. _all_), so *de aller fleste fysikere* technically means "the most of all of the physicists"


Thanks for clarifying and for the explanation of the word itself! I did wonder what the _-er_ ending was. (I've come across a few other fossilized endings too, such as the _-s_ in _til sengs._)


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## NorwegianNYC

_Til sjøs, til fjells, til skogs, til lands_ etc are all relics of the *genitive* or *possessive case*. This prepositional genitive is no longer a productive case in Norwegian (nor has it been for several hundred years), but because these expressions are so common, one will sometimes see new constructs. The expression _til sengs_ technically means "to the place of the bed"


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## Alxmrphi

> This prepositional genitive is no longer a productive case in Norwegian  (nor has it been for several hundred years), but because these  expressions are so common, one will sometimes see new constructs


Just like how "_to and fro_" survives in English, from the Norse word '*fra*' (which became '_fro_' in Old Midlands dialect) which was adopted into the language as a fossilised idiom which preserves a really old prespositional form.


> The expression _til sengs_ technically means "to the place of the bed"


Is '_sengs_' here cognate with _sæng_ in Icelandic (noun: duvet/quilt) or _sænga_ (_saman_) (verb: sleep together), do you know?
The sleep-related meanings made me wonder.


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## Ben Jamin

timtfj said:


> But it would be good to hear from an actual Norwegian-speaking Norwegian on this, ...


To your information: I have lived in Norway since 1982, and in all these years my work involved reading and writing in Norwegian many hours every day.


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