Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1970, Page 393

391
of the verb is in the dative, not the accusative. The phrase
bera e-n sgkum is synonymous with bera sakir á e-n. But the
meaning of the verb is not precisely ‘carry’ or ‘bring’. Earlier
scholars have assigned two meanings to it. Delbriick (1907 :i i)
said: ‘Im Aisl. gibt es eine Bedeutung ‘bewáltigen’, z.B. bar
hann hana björe er bewáltigte sie durch Bier Vkv. 9, ebenso eine
Bedeutung ‘begaben’ mit Instr. Die erstere Nuance diirfte
aus ‘emporheben’ entstanden sein, die Entstehung der zweiten
ist mir nicht klar.’
Similarly, Vonhof had distinguished between two meanings.
The first, ‘iiberwáltigerí, he saw in bar hann hana bióri and in the
past participle in hér liggr Borgný of borin verkium. This meaning
he assigned to PN *and-beran (Vonhof 1905:19) and compared
it with OE on-beran ‘diminish, enfeeble, impair, destroy’, which,
however, never occurs in this construction. The second mean-
ing, ‘begaben, beschenken’, he saw in hverr hefr þik baugum borit?
and assigned it to PN *bi-beran even though he says—incor-
rectly, however—that parallels are lacking (Vonhof 1905:24).
As far as the first of these meanings is concerned Ingerid
Dal (ig3o(a):67) agreed that it had belonged to an earlier
compound without giving a further definition. Ture Johan-
nisson (1939:57), on the other hand, proposed PN *ab-beran,
the meaning of which is reflected in bera e-n afli (ofrefli,
ofríki, etc.) and, furthermore, in three sentences in the Edda,
viz., Bar hann hana bióri (Vplundarkviða 28; NFK 168), hveriu
ertu nú bglvi borinn? (Grógaldr 2; NFK 338), and Hér liggr
Borgný / of borin verkium (Oddrúnargrátr 4; NFK 277). This
conclusion was drawn from the substantive afburðr ‘superior-
ity’, which he regarded as a derivation from the compound
*ab-beran but not from the phrasal verb bera af ‘surpass’,
which is well-known in Old as well as Modern Icelandic. The
other meaning (‘begaben') is not discussed.
There still remains the possibility of looking at the construc-
tion as the bearer of a certain basic meaning, say, ‘begaben',
from which the other meaning, ‘bewaltigen' or * uberwdltigen',
might have developed.