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Pronominal address in Icelandic: from you-two to you-all

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Einar Haugen
Einar Haugen
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

The conservatism of modern Icelandic is a bromide so well worn that it is refreshing now and then to be reminded that Icelandic has in fact changed from that Old Norwegian which the settlers brought with them in the ninth century, and that it is not, in the words of a recent writer, ‘eine versteinerte Sprachform’ (Décsy 1973: 48). One striking change, which involves phonological, morphological, syntactic, and sociolinguistic problems, is that of the dual and plural pronouns of the first and second persons. Succinctly stated: ON vit ‘we’ dual and pit ‘you’ dual have become við ‘we’ plural and pið ‘you’ plural, while ON vér ‘we’ plural and pér ‘you’ plural have become ‘we’ honorific and ‘you’ honorific. A systematic shift of meaning has affected both pronouns, eliminating the dual meaning in favor of the plural, and the plural in favor of the honorific singular.

Type
Articles: Conversational devices and structures
Information
Language in Society , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , December 1975 , pp. 323 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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