Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2010, Page 133

Two Changes in Faroese 131
(io)a. Haraldur sendi ost til mín. (Fa.)
Haraldur sendi ost til mín. (Ic.)
Harold(N) sent cheese(A) to me(G)
‘Harold sent cheese to me.’
b. Teir faksaðu sáttmálan til mín. (Fa.)
Þeir föxuðu samninginn til mín. (Ic.)
they(N) faxed contract-the(A) to me (G)
‘They faxed the contract to me.’
With regard to analytic comparatives/and superlatives, the change from
synthetic to analytic could also be explained as a purely internal change.
also could have been triggered by pre-existing structures. These struc-
tures are found with indeclinable adjectives: meira ótolandi'more intoler-
at>le’ and mest ótolandi ‘most intolerable’, and compounded adjectives,
tneira framsíggin ‘more visionary’ and mest framsiggin ‘most visionary’ (see
e-g. Höskuldur Thráinsson et al. 2004:112 and Petersen 20iob).
But the dichotomy between a language-internal change and a lan-
guage-external change (— language contact) is a complicated one. Several
factors are usually at work, and multiple motivations can muddy the
ivaters (cf. Aikhenvald 2008:9). Some of these multiple motivations and
factors are mentioned in section 2 above (The social settings of
Paroese).This includes speakers’ attitudes towards the source language,
which could facilitate borrowings, as well as the length of the language
Ce>ntact situation and the age at which children start to acquire L2. In
addition, the relatively short time that Faroese has been used as a written
language and the limited amount of existing texts in Faroese can also
niake it easier for Danish constructions to enter Faroese, as the Faroe
Islanders read and hear a lot of Danish in everyday life (cf. Petersen
2oioa:29ff.). That means that the role of the listener must also be con-
Sldered when dealing with changes in Faroese. With regard to age (an
extra-linguistic factor), it was shown that the oldest speakers accept geva
f-’O+PP slightly more readily than the younger speakers. This needs to
be further explained, as one could expect the youngest speakers to be the
uinovators. The reason, I believe, is that the oldest speakers had a rela-
Þvely more exposure to Danish when they went to school and they usu-
ally read a lot of Danish. In fact, one woman from the oldest generation
Said in one interview that she finds it strange to read novels in Faroese
and that she prefers to read them in Danish. These speakers had almost
no access to any Faroese texts or schoolbooks when they were growing