Kennings and variability
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Tarrin Wills
Abstract
A casual examination of the skaldic corpus suggests that a very large proportion of kennings are unique, that is, the nouns that form a kenning are very unlikely to appear elsewhere as a kenning, even when grammatical variation is taken into account. This enormous productivity is due to the principle of variability and substitution in kennings. The phenomenon is discussed in Fidjestøl’s 1974 structural analysis of the kenning system and presented there as a reversal of the principle of linguistic economy. This paper investigates this phenomenon by quantitatively analysing the kenning corpus as recorded in the skaldic database, in order to identify matching kennings within the corpus. The results are broken down according to the complexity of the kennings in question and are then examined in relation to the structural framework of the kenning system. It is shown, firstly, that a relatively small number of kennings are repeated (10–12 % of kennings are repeated), but that there is a fairly high amount of repetition among simple kennings (at least 25 % of simple kennings are found elsewhere in the corpus), suggesting that the kenning system has quantitative similarities with other linguistic systems, albeit with a much higher level of variability.
References
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© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Obituaries
- In memoriam: Klaus Düwel
- In memoriam: Julia Zernack
- Editorial
- Kenningstudien
- Kenningstudien
- Kennings and variability
- Kennings for ‘raven’ and ‘eagle’
- Riddles and Kennings
- Kennings in Old English Verse and in the Poetic Edda
- Kenningar in den metrischen Runeninschriften der Wikingerzeit und des Mittelalters
- “The fair draught of Óðinn”
- Articles
- Lene Asks Kjære Rikard som utgangspunkt for utvikling av emosjonell literacy og mentaliseringsevne
- Den kriminelle romanen og leseren
- Reviews
- Harald Bjorvand/Fredrik Otto Lindeman:Våre arveord. Etymologisk ordbok
- Helge Sandøy, Agnete Nesse (eds.):Norsk språkhistorie. Bd. I Mønster (681 S.), Bd. II Praksis (684 S.), Bd. III Ideologi (548 S.), Bd. IV Tidslinjer (798 S.)
- Katharina Fürholzer:Das Ethos des Pathographen: Literatur- und medizinethische Dimensionen von Krankenbiographien
- Leonie Krutzinna:Der norwegische Schwitters. Die Merz-Kunst im Exil
- Rebecca Merkelbach:Monsters in Society. Alterity, Transgression and the Use of the Medieval Past in Medieval Iceland
- Kim P. Middel:The search for self-awareness. The road to national identity on Iceland, sæc. xiii–xx
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Obituaries
- In memoriam: Klaus Düwel
- In memoriam: Julia Zernack
- Editorial
- Kenningstudien
- Kenningstudien
- Kennings and variability
- Kennings for ‘raven’ and ‘eagle’
- Riddles and Kennings
- Kennings in Old English Verse and in the Poetic Edda
- Kenningar in den metrischen Runeninschriften der Wikingerzeit und des Mittelalters
- “The fair draught of Óðinn”
- Articles
- Lene Asks Kjære Rikard som utgangspunkt for utvikling av emosjonell literacy og mentaliseringsevne
- Den kriminelle romanen og leseren
- Reviews
- Harald Bjorvand/Fredrik Otto Lindeman:Våre arveord. Etymologisk ordbok
- Helge Sandøy, Agnete Nesse (eds.):Norsk språkhistorie. Bd. I Mønster (681 S.), Bd. II Praksis (684 S.), Bd. III Ideologi (548 S.), Bd. IV Tidslinjer (798 S.)
- Katharina Fürholzer:Das Ethos des Pathographen: Literatur- und medizinethische Dimensionen von Krankenbiographien
- Leonie Krutzinna:Der norwegische Schwitters. Die Merz-Kunst im Exil
- Rebecca Merkelbach:Monsters in Society. Alterity, Transgression and the Use of the Medieval Past in Medieval Iceland
- Kim P. Middel:The search for self-awareness. The road to national identity on Iceland, sæc. xiii–xx
