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2 results

  • From ‘remain’ to ‘become’: the history of bliva in Swedish

  • Dominika Skrzypek, Elisabet Engdahl
  • Journal:
    Nordic Journal of Linguistics , First View
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    09 January 2025, pp. 1-27
    • Article
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  • In Old Swedish, the verb varda ‘become’ was used both as a copula and as a passive auxiliary. During the 1300s, a period of close contact with Middle Low German, the verb blîven ‘remain’ was borrowed into Swedish as bliva. Despite the difference in meaning (‘become’ vs. ‘remain’), the use of bliva increased, and by the end of the 1500s it was used in all constructions where varda was originally found. We study this development in a collection of Swedish texts from 1487 to 1585. The first occurrences of the ‘become’ meaning are found in constructions with adjectival complements, in particular in the highly frequent phrase bliva död ‘become dead (die)’. Once bliva had acquired the meaning ‘become’, it could also be used as a passive auxiliary, which led to a rapid increase in occurrences and subsequently to bliva replacing varda in all contexts.

  • 1 - Words

  • Peter Trudgill, Université de Fribourg, Switzerland
  • Book:
    European Language Matters
    Published online:
    29 October 2021
    Print publication:
    11 November 2021, pp 6-36

  • Summary

    This chapter looks at a selection of words from English, as well as words from many other languages, and discusses their origins and relationships.