Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2021, Page 151

As can be seen, the distribution of word pairs is not even throughout the corpus.
In fact, two groups of texts are discernible: Group A, constituted by the genres
Religious Texts and Treatises (185 types in total), and group B (all other genres,
163 types in total). Group A is characterized by the fact that many word pairs fall
under one or more semantic fields which are directly related to the textual typol-
ogy in which they appear. Conversely, in group B there appear more semantically
common types, and word pairs which may be said to be specific to a given genre
are rare. Chivalric and Legendary Sagas pertain to group B although they seem
to show many word pairs. This is due to “noise” in the data from that genre, as
eight word pairs (semantic field: Sins) are only attested in one of the two versions
of Alexanders saga. Semantically specific word pairs in this group of texts are four
and they pertain to the semantic fields Chivalric Activities (two word pairs) and
Mythological Creatures (two word pairs).
A “law of semantic specificity” can thus be proposed: the number of terms
specific to a given genre is directly proportional to the number of word pairs in
that genre, which is to say that a high degree of semantic specificity corresponds
to a high number of loanword/native word lexical pairs. High semantic specifici-
ty is moreover associated with translated material and native adaptations of for-
eign works, rather than with native literary products.
As regards the relationship between loanword/native word relative chronol-
ogy and loanword typology the following general principles can be formulated:
1) A necessity borrowing enters a given lexicon before any native lexeme
with the same meaning is available.
2) A prestige borrowing enters a given lexicon only after a native word (or
an older loanword or both) has become an estabished member of that lexi -
con.
From these two generalizations it follows that:
1) Necessity borrowings cannot correspond to inherited lexemes, which
have the same meaning of the loanword and precede it in the lexicon by
definition. Conversely, it is often the case in which inherited words
acquire a new meaning due to external influence (semantic calques).
2) A prestige borrowing is less likely to have a calque (of either type) as its
native counterpart.
To these two rules, however, apply the following set of exceptions:
Exceptions to rule 1:
If an inherited lexeme corresponds to a necessity borrowing the loanword is
either a hyponym of the native word (e.g. buklari – skjǫldr) or it is a technical
term, which was first borrowed with a very restricted meaning, in which case
Loanwords and native words in Old and Middle Icelandic 151