Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2021, Page 167

These discussions, based on the specific data from his corpus, would have
allowed Matteo to make stronger comments than some of the explanations that
we currently have about the possible reasons that might have led speakers to
adopt a loanword in the initial instance (i.e. whether it was a prestige loan or not).
The latter sometimes read like guesswork (e.g. the discussion of the interaction
between eftirdæmi and exemplum on p. 56), to a great extent because of the pauci-
ty of information. If these discussions are retained in the published version of the
dissertation, Matteo should include here information about the date of first attes-
tation of the terms, rather than relegating this to the very end of the dissertation.
2. Genres and Schools: the dissertation includes a number of passing com-
ments about really interesting findings whose full implications are, unfortunate-
ly, not teased out. For instance, in Chapter 8, Matteo talks about the fact that we
see a higher number of doublets of loanwords and ‘native’ terms in chivalric sagas
than in legendary sagas, but this is not explored in much detail. Why might this
be the case? Does it have to do with the concepts that attract the use of such dou-
blets? In Chapter 5, Matteo also talks about the stylistic features of Laurentius
saga in connection with the North Icelandic Benedictine School, but there is not
much information about this; readers who are not familiar with this school or the
stylistic features of the texts it produced are left wanting more information. This
point, of course, is also connected with the discussion of diachronic / diatopic
differences that I mentioned earlier.

Rigour
In terms of rigour, the dissertation is particularly praiseworthy for the breadth of
knowledge that Matteo exhibits about his field of research, the large size of its
corpus and the attempts that have been made to classify the loanwords both ety-
mologically and semantically. However, there are a number of issues in connec-
tion with the latter that should be given further consideration.

Contexts of contact
It would have been very helpful if the dissertation had provided an overview of the
historical and cultural contexts that led to language contact and borrowing, in terms
of the chronology, the types of contacts, etc. This would have helped Matteo to
establish some parameters that he could have referred to when trying to establish
the source language(s) of a term: for instance, on p. 39 we are told that the late attes-
tation of port suggests that the term is unlikely to have been borrowed from Old
English (note that this is the explanation preferred in OED, s.v. port, n. 3, which is
not mentioned) and might therefore come from Middle Low German. However,
port is also attested in Middle English and of course (Anglo-Norman) French (see
MED, s.v. port(e); and AND s.v. porte1). We have a similar case for guðspjallari,
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