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SUMMARY
Relics of an old inflection of comparative adjectives in Modern Icelandic’
Keywords: historical morphology, analogy, the comparative degree of adjectives, place
names, names of body parts, words of kinship
This paper discusses relics of an earlier inflection of comparative adjectives in Modern
eelandic. Sources indicate that the inflection that predominates in Modern Icelandic esta-
ished itself in the language in the i8th century at the latest. Yet, relics of an earlier inflec-
^°n may still be found in place names like Minni-Núpur or Sydri-Hóll, proper names like
niri-Rauður (‘Younger Red’, name of a horse), words of kinship like eldri bróðir ‘older
, rotner’, and with names of body parts like vinstri fóturinn ‘the left foot’, h&gri armurinn
'ne right arm’.
All the nouns in question, it should be emphasized, can be said to be definite in some
WaY or other, not only the place/proper names. This is related to the fact that in Icelandic,
narnes °f body parts and words of kinship largely exhibit the syntactic behaviour of def-
'ntte nouns. With these nouns, the old declension of the comparative degree can be used
0r not; there are thus two possibilities. In comparative adjectives with all other nouns, the
eIopment has not been the same because there is only one possibility, namely the mod-
ern inflection. Furthermore, it should be emphasized that the modern inflection of the
°°rnparative form used with place and proper names, names of body parts and words of
snip is probably more common than the relic forms. These morphological develop-
n^nts are analyzed and described in the light of theories of analogical change proposed by
nryfowicz and Manczak.
^argre't Jónsdóttir
Mensku- og menningardeild
agvísindasvið Háskóla íslands
A'101 Reykjavík, ÍSLAND
m)°ns@hi.is