Orð og tunga - 01.06.2016, Page 93

Guðrún Þórhallsdóttir: Tvíræða orðasambandið að ósekju 83
Lykilorð
íslensk málsaga, söguleg beygingar- og orðmyndunarfræði, orðsifjar, orð mynd un,
áhrifsbreytingar, forsetningarliðir
Keywords
history of the Icelandic language, historical morphology, etymology, word formation,
analogical changes, prepositional phrases
Abstract
This paper discusses the origin and history of the Icelandic phrase að ósekju (OIcel.
‘with impunity’, ModIcel. ‘without guilt, without cause’). Most handbooks have in-
terpreted the form ósekju in this prepositional phrase as the dative singular of the
noun ósekja f. ‘innocence’. Following a discussion of the evidence for the nouns ósekja
and sekja and phrases with the preposition að, it is argued that it would be more
appropriate to consider ósekju an Old Icelandic dative singular neuter of the adjec-
tive ósekr ‘not convicted, not guilty’. A comparable example, the ambiguous phrase
með heilbrigðu, is just as likely to contain dat.sg.n. heilbrigðu of the adjective heilbrigðr
(‘with (everything) safe and sound’) as the dative of a feminine substantive.
Guðrún Þórhallsdótt ir
Íslensku- og menningardeild
Hugvísindasviði Háskóla Íslands
IS-101 Reykjavík
gth@hi.is
tunga_18.indb 83 11.3.2016 14:41:14