Re: Norwegian Vocative

From: g-tegle@...
Message: 6074
Date: 2001-02-12

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Neither PIE nor PGmc adjectives had vocative forms. The retention
of weak adjectives in direct address may be due to eurhythmy.
Alternating stress patterns are often preferred in fixed phrases and
idiomatic expressions.
>


Nevertheless, I would think of the -e ending in direct address as
being more of a case marker as opposed to the genitive -s. In
Norwegian the -s ending is more or less a postposition rather than a
case marker. The same could be said about dative pl. -n ending of
German nouns.

For some reason unknown to me the weak form of the adjective is used
when a subordinate noun in the genitive preceeds the main noun
phrase. Here, too, the noun is indefinite and the adjective should
therefore have been strong.

Examples:

E: "the king's good servant" - N: "kongens gode tjener"

E: "the poem's real meaning" - N: "diktets virkelige mening"


Maybe your answer fits in here as well.

I would like to know if the phenomena is just as common in the other
Scandinavian languages as in Norwegian. In Swedish the things have
got more complex since the adjective has got endings to indicate
gender and number both in weak and strong forms. Since the opposition
between agreement vs no agreement has dissapeared, what is the point
in keeping alive terms like weak and strong?

Haavard