Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2006, Blaðsíða 132

130
Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson
SUMMARY
‘The Origin and Development of Icelandic sjálfs tnín(s)'
Keywords: pronouns, sjálfur, language change, language variation, language stan-
dardization
This paper discusses the use and historical development of the combination sjálfur
‘self + possessive pronoun. It is shown that in Old Icelandic, the possessive pronoun
agreed in gender, number, and case with the noun that it modified, whereas sjálfur
was in the genitive, agreeing in number and case with its antecedent. Already in Old
Icelandic, however, there is tendency to have sjálfur in the genitive preceding the
possessive pronoun and placing the latter also in the genitive. Thus, alongside the
original eigu sinni (fem. sg. dat.) sjálfs (masc. sg. gen.) (possession her self, i.e. ‘her
own possession’), we get eigu sjálfs (masc. sg. gen.) sins (masc. sg. gen.).
From the 16th to the 19th century, the type sjálfs síns is the only one we fínd in
written texts. Towards the end of the 19th century, however, we begin to find examp-
les with sín instead of síns. This variant becomes dominant in the 20th century, and
the other variant is then degraded and considered wrong usage.
In Modem Icelandic, both the sín-variant and the .sms-variant are very common—
the latter especially in informal language. However, the variation is mainly found
with the genitive form sjálfs, i.e. masc. and neut. sg.—in fem. sg. and masc./fem./neut.
pl, where the forms are sjálfrar and sjálfra, respectively, the .sm-variant is
overwhelmingly dominant. In Modem Icelandic, it is also possible to find examples
where the masc./neut. sg. form sjálfs refers to an antecedent in fem. sg. or in pl.
The author concludes that the combination sjálfs sín(s) must be analyzed as a
special pronoun, rather than a combination of two pronouns.
Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson
Háskóla íslands
Árnagarði við Suðurgötu
IS-101 Reykjavík, ÍSLAND
eirikur@hi.is