Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 13.07.1981, Blaðsíða 59

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The case government of the Faroese preposition fyri
(111) Ein eingil av himni birtist fyri honum
(112) eftir at fundurin á Doktaragrund var liðugur, fór hann á odda
fyri eini kravgongu .. . til lógtingsformannin
(113) Hvalbiarfj0rður er opin fyri havinum
Half way between these and the figurative Locational phrases are:
(114) Soleiðis stendur Jesus enn dagin í dag fyri heiminum
(115) tað fór at myrkna fyri eygunum
(116) tá slaktið er yvirstaðið, er ravnurin minni fyri eygum
(117) Opið er hv0nn dag fyri privatari vitjan og b0n
(118) fyri degi fer at rodna
Of (114) it can be said that effects of the life of Jesus and the gospels
stand before us in a literal sense, whereas Jesus himself is a mental
image and only stands before ‘the mind’s eye’. In (115) fyri eygunum is
also part literal and part figurative in that the darkness before the eyes
is real enough, but it is also an image of (approaching) unconsciousness.
Similarly, the expression at vera fyri eygum must have a literal meaning
‘to be before the eyes’ from which to take its (main) figurative sense ‘to
be seen’. There is a temptation for a speaker of English to assume that
fyri in (117) primarily denotes purpose, but its basic sense is the same
as in opin fyri havinum in (113): ‘(open) to’, i.e. ‘facing’, and thus ‘in
a position in front of’. (118) depicts changing light as a harbinger of a
particular time of day. There are a limited number of such expressions.
Jacobsen and Matras (1961:99) and Lockwood (1955:95) give: nú
blánar fyri degi and tað myrkir fyri kv<þldi. In both cases, as in (118),
the partial light or darkness precedes ‘day’ or ‘evening’; it does not
move towards it, but is in a fixed position in front of it.
The figurative Locational phrases have the following principal mean-
ings: (a) ‘in one’s view’, ‘in one’s mind’, ‘in one’s mind’s eye’ (cf. 119-
23); (b) in connection with standa, vera (and certain other verbs) or
nouns such as formaður, leiðari, stjóri etc. ‘in charge of’ (these are
figurative extensions of literal expressions such as standa fyri ‘stand
before’, ‘stand at the head of’) (124-7); (c) ‘exposed to’ (128-30). In
each case someone or something (in 119-23 a notion, image etc.) is
visualised as confronting, being at the head of or facing whatever is
denoted by the dative noun phrase that follows fyri. I include a fair
spread of examples to illustrate the range of these phrases: