Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2010, Page 119
HJALMAR P. PETERSEN
Two Changes in Faroese:
A Common Denominator?
l' Introduction
The topic of this article is two changes in Faroese.1 One is the change of
the argument structure of ditransitive verbs, (ía), to an analytic construc-
tion with a prepositional phrase, (íb). The other is the change from syn-
thetic to analytic comparative, as illustrated in (íc) and (id):2
Wa. Jógvan gevur Frelsunarherinum klæðini.
John(N) gives Salvation Army-the(D) clothes-the(A)
‘John gives the Salvation Army the clothes.’
h. Jógvan gevur klæðini til Frelsunarherin.
John(N) gives clothes-the(A) to Salvation Army-the(A)
‘John gives the clothes to the Salvation Army.’
c- Hetta barnið er sjúkari enn hatta barnið.
this child(N) is sicker(COMP) than that child(N)
‘This child is sicker than that child.’
d- Hetta barnið er meira sjúkt enn hatta barnið.
this child(N) is more sick than that child(N)
‘This child is more sick than that child.’
"^he niain question that I will address is what the nature of these changes
m’ght be. Three possibilities come to mind:
(2)a. internal changes
h. external changes, i.e. language contact
c- influence of extra-linguistic factors (e.g. age, gender, social class,
dialect, etc.)
I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor Höskuldur Þráins-
for comments on an earlier version of this paper. In addition, thanks to A. Mac-
°ugall for proof-reading and T. Bruggemann (statistician at the SFB: Multilingualism)
0r helping me with the data.
Abbreviations here and elsewhere in this paper: N = nominative, A = accusative, D
' dative, G = genitive, DO = direct object, IO = indirect object, PP = prepositional
Ptase.
(Synthetic)
(Analytic)
(Synthetic)
(Analytic)
Denskt mál32 (2010), 117-134. © 2010 íslenska málfr<s.ðifélagið, Reykjavík.