adjunct

Forms

adjunct m or n (feminine singular adjunctă, masculine plural adjuncți, feminine/neuter plural adjuncte)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Adjunkt and New Latin adiunctus, literally “a person added to another in an office”.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin word is the past participle of adiungō (“to add, to join”), from ad- and iungō (“to yoke, to join”).^[2][6] Ciorănescu names only the Latin word,^[7] and the DN adds French adjoint as a model.^[8] The linguistic sense follows English adjunct.^[2]

In Bukovina the word was pronounced ⟨adiunct⟩ for a time, after the German pronunciation.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is from about 1832, in Cornelli, in the form adiunct.^[2][3] MDA2 dates it to before 1847, in the documents of the Uricariul.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It came in as an administrative title, a deputy or assistant in an office: Barcianu glosses it with German Amtshelfer “assistant official”.^[9] In Scriban's time it was also an official title of captains and majors in the army commissariat.^[10] Today it is used mostly after a title, as in director adjunct “deputy director”, and as a noun.^[4][5][11] Linguistics took it as a term for an optional constituent of a syntactic group.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1832 – the first record, adiunct, in Cornelli.^[2][3]
• 1840 – the related adjoncțiune “joining, addition”.^[2]
• before 1847 – adjunct in a document of the Uricariul.^[5]
• 1870 – Costinescu lists the form adiunct.^[12]
• 1886 – in Barcianu's dictionary as a noun, “assistant official”.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. deputy, assistant: having the post immediately below the head of an institution, a company or one of their departments.^[4][5][1]
2. (linguistics) Of a constituent of a syntactic group: optional, an adjunct.^[2]

Noun

1. A deputy, a substitute or helper of the head of an office.^[5][13]

Related words

• ajunge
• Latin adiunctus

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. adjunct
3. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. adjunct
4. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 14
5. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 17
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. adjunct
8. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România
9. ^ a b Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 7
10. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună
11. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 27
12. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 1, 17
13. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual