Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2021, Blaðsíða 160

multilingualism at a time when linguistic developments had not started to inter-
fere with linguistic purism (up to c. 1550).
Matteo’s methodological procedure and his linguistic judgement will be
addressed in the following.

2. Typology of word pairs
Matteo introduces four major types of word pair dynamics and analyzes their
distribution across the different genres and text types (for a complete list,
ordered by lexical fields, see Appendix 3 of the thesis):
1. Intrastemmatic variation, e.g., kanúkr – kórsbróðir in Laurentius saga
byskups;
2. Simple loanword – endogenous word alternation, e.g., dýflissa – myrkva -
stofa in Elucidarius;
3. Explicative insertion, e.g., antipes – andføtingr in Stjórn I;
4. Synonymic dittology, e.g., articulus – grein in Islandske originaldiplomer.

This functional distinction is highly relevant (see Introduction, pp. xli–xlii).
Explicative insertions provide an endogenous (native) lexeme to explain a loan-
word. They are typically introduced by an explanatory clause such as þat er, er vér
kǫllum, er nokkurir menn kalla. Synonymic dittologies make use of coordinative
or disjunctive/explanatory conjunctions such as ok, eða, eðr.
The fourth group, however, is de facto extremely inhomogenous. It consists
of very different examples and I suspect that different phenomena are involved
here. In particular, the dynamics of fixed binomials, also labelled twin formulas,
needs to be addressed (on their linguistic status, functions and pragmatic use see
Southern 2000). Technically speaking, the formulaic binomials make up a large
group in the Old Icelandic/Old Norse literary corpus and they are attested in the
older runic inscriptions; compare the līna laukaR formula on the Fløksand
scraper. This type of formula has received much attention since the works of
Moritz Heyne (1864) and Richard Meyer (1889). In Matteo’s material, meðr bik
ok tjǫru, náð ok miskunn, mekt ok vald, and not least the alliterative pair fría ok firra
belong to this group.
Against this background, the candidate should consider to extend the above
typology by including the group (or subgroup) of binomials. Not least stylistic
criteria need to be further elaborated in this context. In connection with Hagio -
graphical texts, Matteo briefly states in Chap. 6 (pp. 132–133):
As also previously noted (e.g. Ch. 1, § 6.2.3), synonymic dittologies do not
appear to be tied to any specific semantic field, as they can be used with spe-
cialized lexicon as well as with lexemes of more general nature. Whereas in
religious texts, e.g. in Stjórn I, but also in the diplomata, this particular
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