þat

Forms

þat pron n (genitive þess, dative því or þí), the neuter singular of sá, whose masculine and feminine nominatives come from another stem.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *þat (“that”), the neuter of *sa (“that”),^[2] from Proto-Indo-European *tód, the neuter of *só.^[2] Its West and East Germanic counterparts are Gothic 𐌸𐌰𐍄𐌰 (þata), Old English þæt, Old Frisian thet, Old Saxon that and Old High German daz.^[3][4] The Gothic form has an extra final vowel that Orel calls unclear, perhaps a particle.^[3]

Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon reconstructs the Germanic form as *þata and the Indo-European one as *tod, and places the word in the pronominal stem *to-, *te-, together with Ancient Greek τό (tó) and the second part of Latin istud.^[5] De Vries gives the same comparisons.^[4] Köbler traces the stem to Pokorny's root Proto-Indo-European *to-.^[6]

The same stem gives the rest of the paradigm of sá except its masculine and feminine nominative singular, and also þar, þaðan and þeir.^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The record dates the pronoun first in the Icelandic First Grammatical Treatise, which IcePaHC dates to 1150.^[7] Menota's lemmatised texts have it in the fragment Lbs fragm. 82, of 1258–1264.^[8] Cleasby and Vigfússon note that the demonstrative use “this, these” is frequent on runic stones.^[1]

Semantic evolution

Old Norse used the word both as the neuter of the demonstrative sá and as the neuter of the personal pronoun hann, meaning “it”.^[5][1] As a personal pronoun it was the empty subject of phrases like þat var einhverju sinni, at “it happened once that”.^[9] It often refers back to a masculine or feminine noun, and it can stand before a plural verb as “they”.^[10] From the pronoun came an adverbial use, so, to that degree,^[9][11] and use as a conjunction that, in place of at.^[9][12]

Modern Icelandic writes it það,^[5] and the mainland languages have Norwegian Bokmål det, Swedish det and Danish det.^[4]

Timeline

• 1150 – þat in the First Grammatical Treatise, by IcePaHC's dating.^[7]
• 1258–1264 – Þat, þess and því in the fragment Lbs fragm. 82.^[8]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. that: the neuter of the demonstrative sá, also before an adjective with the article.^[1][9]
2. it, the neuter personal pronoun, also as an empty subject (þat var siðr “it was the custom”).^[1][9]
3. this, these, in the sense of þessi.^[1]
4. they, referring to a masculine or feminine noun or before a plural verb.^[10]
5. (adverbial) so, to that degree.^[9][11]
6. þat … þat: now … now, partly … partly.^[11]
7. (conjunction) that, like at.^[9][12]

Word family

• þatki

Descendants

• Icelandic það^[2]
• Faroese tað^[2]
• Norwegian Nynorsk det^[2]
• Norwegian Bokmål det^[2]
• Swedish det^[2]
• Danish det^[2]

Related words

• sá
• þeir
• þessi
• þar
• þaðan
• þó

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 731
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
3. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 417
4. ^ a b c de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 606
5. ^ a b c d Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. það
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ a b Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
8. ^ a b Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. Lbs fragm. 82
9. ^ a b c d e f g Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. þat
10. ^ a b Faulkes, Anthony (2011), A New Introduction to Old Norse III: Glossary and Index of Names, 4th ed., London: Viking Society for Northern Research, p. s.v. þat
11. ^ a b c Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 766
12. ^ a b Finnur Jónsson (1931), Lexicon Poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: S. L. Møller, p. 636