Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2004, Qupperneq 50

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Haraldur Bernharðsson
characteristics of place names is particularly profound in plural place names, since the
principal case form, the dative plural, has a single morpheme, -um, in all three gend-
ers, across all inflectional classes.
Place names show analogical tendencies that are different from ordinary nouns, as
discussed in section 4. Many of the general tendencies detected in analogical change
by Kurytowicz (1945-49) and Manczak (1958, 1963) find a striking correspondance
in data from language acquisition, as shown by Hooper (1980:166): forms that are
acquired late (derived forms) frequently are affected by forms that are acquired early
(basic forms). In ordinary nominal paradigms, the nominative case is basic or un-
marked, but as Manczak (1958:396-401) and Tiersma (1982) have pointed out, in
place names the local case, dative in Icelandic place names, is the basic or unmarked
case; this Tiersma refers to as local markedness.
The morphological developments described in section 2 are analyzed in 5. It is
argued that these changes all are due to local markedness (the dative is the unmarked
case form in place names) and the fact that the unmarked case form is ambiguous with
respect to gender (dat. plur. has a single morpheme -um in all three genders, across all
inflectional classes). The changes that involve gender switch (5.2) seem to suggest
that the reanalysis triggered by the gender-indeterminate dative forms is to some
extent governed by lexical strength, as defined by Bybee (1985): masculines in nom.
plur. -ir, acc. -i tend to join the more numerous and more productive feminines in
nom.-acc. plur. -ir (5.2.1), feminines in nom.-acc. plur. -ar tend to enter the larger cat-
egory of masculines in nom. plur. -ar, acc. -a (5.2.2), the neuters with zero ending
(-0) in nom.-acc. plur. tend to join the large masculine class in nom. plur. -ar, acc.
-a (5.2.3), and the small class of zí-stem place names in nom. plur. -ir, acc. -u (or youn-
ger -i) tend to join the more numerous feminines in nom.-acc. plur. -ur (5.2.4). The
uniform morphology of the dat. plur. (-um) across all inflectional classes allows the
gen. plur. ending -na to spread by analogical extension (5.5).
Haraldur Bernharðsson
Hugvísindastofnun
Nýja-Garði
Háskóla íslands
IS-101 Reykjavik, ÍSLAND
haraldr@hi.is