Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2021, Síða 177

Middle Low German as -ēren and hence acquired in Icelandic as -era, where it
became productive thanks to the wealth of borrowed verbs with said suffix. In
addition to the chronological argument, a semantic argument can be devised. In
fact, the semantics of OIcel. dívísera do not harmonize with the general semantics
of Medieval Latin borrowings in Icelandic, for they are chiefly of religious nature
(e.g. prefatia). On the other hand, ultimately (Medieval) Latin borrowings via
French, Middle Low German, or another intermediary are numerous and their
semantics varied (e.g. dustera, kápa, kempa, kompánn, etc.). Overall, a borrowing
path is preferable which considers a middle stage between Latin and Icelandic at
a time when the vernaculars and literary production in the vernacular was blos-
soming.

2.4.2 klerkr
Mutatis mutandis, in the case of OIcel. klerkr both Old English and Latin would
almost equally classify as possible lending languages. The former because it is the
main source for religious borrowings in Old Icelandic. The latter because it was
the main language of the Church and it cannot be excluded on a phonological
basis in favor of English. It is impossible to say whether klerkr comes through
Old English or directly from Latin. The principle according to which Old
English may be preferred is a majority principle. Looking at the age of the first
attestations for the word it was proposed that it might have wandered into
Norwegian first, and thence in Icelandic. The Norwegian provenance of a num-
ber of loans in Icelandic, especially (but not only) of Middle Low German origin
(on which cf. Veturliði Óskarsson 2005), is a notoriously difficult, and perhaps
unsoluble, problem. Hence, the best that can be done is to consider the possibil-
ity for a certain word to have wandered through Norwegian before entering
Icelandic, if the earliest sources allow for such a proposal.

2.4.3 expens
Lat. expensum is ruled out contra Alexander Jóhannesson because of the lack of
ending. Differently from klerkr, which shows full adaptation to Icelandic,
expens, even if acclimatized, clearly shows the vestiges of its foreign provenance
(e.g. indigenous nouns ending in -ns are all too much rare in Icelandic, cf. ONP
where I could only find hǿns). Hence, a phonemic shape /ekspensum/ (or
/expensa/ from the plural form, which was likely more frequent) would be
expected if the word were a direct borrowing from Latin. In addition, the word
is not semantically close to other direct borrowings from Latin in the medieval
period.

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