Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1965, Page 62

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HALLDÓR HALLDÓRSSON
However, the possibility must not be overlooked that the verb
*drepan has had some prefix, which has been dropped in the usual
way in Primitive Norse. This will be discussed below.
It would be an abnegation of the comparative method in linguis-
tics not to presume a connection between the above mentioned Old
High German, Old French and English phrases on the one side and
the Icelandic phrase drepa stall on the other. And it must not be for-
gotten that by using another method it can with fairly great certainty
be concluded that drepa stall means ‘to stop’. I mean by comparing
it with hjarta stallrar, which has been dealt with above.
I think I am thus able to maintain that the Icelandic expression
drepa stall is a Proto-Germanic expression meaning ‘to stop’ and
has been preserved in the Icelandic phrase hjarta drepr stall.
7) The Icelandic expressions nema stað(ar) and taka stað and in
the same way Old French prendre estal, English to take stall and the
presumed Proto-Germanic *slalld neman are easy to explain. The
verbs nema, take and Old French prendre mean ‘to take’. The ori-
ginal meaning of the expressions is thus ‘to take a place’. It is quite
thinkable that these expressions originally come from the military
language, cf. that Old French prendre estal has the meaning “s’ar-
réter pour combattre.” The expressions gefa stað(ar), OHG stal
geban and the presumed Proto-Germanic *stalld geban are much
more difficult to explain, in fact hardly possible without assuming
that the verb geja (*geban) has another meaning than the usual one
in the Germanic languages. It has been pointed out that the verb
*geban replaces the verb *dö in the Germanic languages (cf. e.g.,
Latin do). It is to be expected that the Germanic meaning of the
verb is not original. It has been presumed that the original meaning
of the verb is ‘to take’, cf. e.g., Old Irish gabim ‘take’ and Middle
Irish gabaim ‘take, give’.73 Taking into consideration the great age
of the expression (see above), it is tempting to assume that this old
meaning of the verb has been preserved in the expression. If this is
73 Elof Hellquist, Svensk etymologisk ordbok (Lund 1939), under giva; Falk
und Torp, under give.