From genitive to linking element

Abstract

In contemporary Faroese, the genitive as verbal and prepositional case has been replaced by the dative or the accusative, e.g. bíða eftir mær ‘wait for me-DAT’ or bíða mær ‘wait me-DAT’ instead of bíða mín ‘wait mine-GEN’, and frequently also til hann ‘to him-ACC’ instead of til hansara ‘to him-GEN’. Genitive attributes are no longer in use either. In contrast, the system of linking elements in Faroese compounds, originating from the genitive endings, e.g. dag+s+verk ‘days work’ (cf. dag-s ‘day-GEN.SG.’), is subject to continuous development. In this paper, we first discuss the unproductive status of the genitive case. Against the background of the declining genitive, we will then show how the linking elements dissociate functionally and formally from their inflectional (genitive) source. We argue that the contemporary linking system of Faroese comprises different stages of this development. An important stage of dissociation is the (development of) non-paradigmatic linking elements, i.e. linkers which are not homophonic with any inflectional ending of the noun, e.g. +s+ in úthurð+s+lykil ‘outdoor-LE1-key’, but úthurð-ar ‘outdoor-GEN.SG.’ The decline of the genitive case has played a decisive role in the recent formal development of the linking system. Our acceptance test with novel and non-sense compounds shows the ongoing formal dissociation of the paradigmatic linker +ar+ into non-paradigmatic +a+, where the latter is used more often in front of obstruents.

Keywords: historical genitive, linking elements, case loss, compounds, paradigmatic and non-paradigmatic linking elements, syntactic case.