Från gammal man till den gamle mannen. Definitmarkering i fornsvenska nominalfraser med adjektivattribut

Abstract

Modern Swedish uses both a free, pre-adjectival, definite article and a definite suffix on the noun to mark definiteness in noun phrases with adjectival attributes. The combination of two definite morphemes in a single noun phrase is commonly referred to as double definiteness. The definite inflexion of nouns, which applies to all the Scandinavian languages, probably arose around 1000, and the use of nouns in the definite form increases steadily over the following centuries, probably in a similar way all over Scandinavia. Interestingly,
however, semantically definite noun phrases with adjectival attributes normally lack all definiteness marking in Old Swedish up to the beginning of the 14th century, which has not been brought to the attention in earlier research. During the latter half of the 14th century, nouns in the definite form could be preceded by adjectives, but only in the so-called weak form. A weakly inflected adjective could in turn be preceded by an articlelike word, but a definite article in the strict sense is not developed until the 15th century. Norwegian has also developed double definiteness, but apparently via a different route. Already early Old Norwegian used a true definite article in pre-adjectival position, at first in combination with uninflected nouns, but later with nouns in the definite form.