Fornir bendingarformar av kenniorðinum og lýsingarorðum í hvørjumfalli, varðveittir í Norðuroyamáli

Abstract

Attention is drawn to an aberration in the dialect of Norðuroyar, an archipelago among the Faroes, from the usual Faroese definite article in dative singular. Faroese has usually coincidence of neutre with masculine, -(i)num, while the dialect in some of the settlements on Norðuroyar carries out the feminine form, -(i)ni, in all genders. It is the authors opinion, that it is an early coincidence of fem. -(i)nni with neutr. -(i)nu, arisen through a weakening of the unstressed vowel -u for the benefit of -i, which is the presupposition of this particular development, in that fem. and neutre have formed a block with the ending -(i)ni, who has pushed into the masculine.

It is also brought into notice, that the original dative-form of weakly inflected adjectives in the plural, -um, which in Faroese usually is superseded by -u from the other cases, has been preserved in the dialect of Fugloy, the eastermost of the six Norðuroyar.