Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1985, Qupperneq 133

Narrative Inversion in Old Icelandic
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other languages with only minor adjustments; thus, e.g., an application
to French is found in Robach (1974), to Norwegian in Hanssen et al.
(1978), to Faroese in Sandqvist (1980), and to Old Swedish and Latin
in Wollin (1983).
In my opinion, the quantitative basis for the discussion of the role
played by narrative inversion in Old Icelandic would be improved if
we use the analyses argued for in the two manuals. Therefore, I will
briefly summarize some of the most important issues. The manual by
Loman & Jörgensen (1971) gives principles for the segmentation of
texts in syntactically coherent segments, called macrosyntagms. A
macrosyntagm is defined as a syntactic unit on the sentential level
which is „intemally kept together by a network of syntactic relation-
ships, and extemally separated by the absence of such relationships
between adjacent segments“ (1971:123). This definition assures that
we do not have to rely on graphic or phonetic cues when we analyze a
text. The macrosyntagms consist of syntactic sequences of many kinds,
complete sentences, fragmentary sentences, isolated inteijections etc.
Among the complete sentences, we have declaratives, questions, im-
peratives and the like. In the context of the present paper, we are only
interested in the declarative macrosyntagms.
The typical declarative macrosyntagm consists of a subject, a finite
verb, and various verb complements and adverbials. If two complete
sentences are coordinated, we have two macrosyntagms. Consider (2)a
below. When the coordinated segment is not a complete sentence
(there might be a gap related to the other conjunct, e.g.), it is not ana-
lyzed as a macrosyntagm of its own, but as a coordinated segment con-
tained in the other macrosyntagm. Cf. (2)b, where the second conjunct
lacks a visible subject. The following examples are taken from Grettis
saga (1937) (the boundary between macrosyntagms is marked with a
slash, /):
(2)a / Fóru þeir þá inn yfir fjorðu, / ok er þeir kómu inn til Ófœru,
mælti Eiríkr / (p. 22)
b / Qnundr leit á fjallit ok kvað vísu þessa / (p. 22)
Whereas the first manual thus makes the concept „sentence“ more
precise, the second manual, Teleman (1974), gives the principles for a
further analysis of the structure of the macrosyntagms. This manual is