Orð og tunga - 2023, Side 103

94 Orð og tunga
Lykilorð
orðasambönd, mynstur, skammaryrði, virkni, órjúfanleg eign
Keywords
idioms, constructions, abuse, productivity, inalienable possession
Abstract
This article examines two Icelandic possessive constructions in which the „possessor“
corresponds to the „property“, thereby differing from other possessive expressions:
a) X þinn (lit. ‘your X’), as in e.g.
— helvítið þitt ‘you bastard’ (lit. ‘your bastard’)
— þrjóturinn þinn ‘you rascal’ (lit. ‘your rascal’)
b) X á honum/henni (lit. ‘X on him/her’ ), as in e.g.
— helvítið á honum ‘(he), the bastard’ (lit. ‘the bastard on him’ )
The latter construction corresponds to a syntax closely connected to inalienable pos­
session, e.g. in hárið á honum ‘his hair’, lit. ‘the hair on him’.
Despite similarities between them, the two constructions differ in many respects.
X þinn has a long history, as attested to by various examples in Old Icelandic, which
shows greater syntactic variation than the modern language. This construction is
extremely productive and is mainly used with nouns of abuse where any epithet
seems to be valid. In Modern Icelandic, however, it is often used in positive contexts,
even those containing high praise. X þinn has counterparts in other Scandinavian
languages where these constructions are also occasionally used in positive contexts.
However, this is much less common than in Icelandic. X á honum/henni seems to
have a relatively short history and similar constructions are unknown in related
languages. By the same token, this construction is much less productive than X þinn.
Additionally, it only occurs in negative contexts and the epithets associated with it
are fewer than ten. Few of these expressions are well known.
Katrín Axelsdóttir
Íslensku­ og menningardeild
Háskóla Íslands
Nýja­Garði við Sæmundargötu
IS­101 Reykjavík, ÍSLAND
katax@hi.is
tunga25.indb 94 08.06.2023 15:47:16