The First Book Printed in Swedish. 25' 



Ot'ï>E. So in Sec. 76 (Thorpe 1, 418), Ot't'OX gif man. — Again, in 

 the Legend of S. Veronica (Müllers Collectanea Anglo-Saxouica, 8'°. 

 Hayniœ 1835, p. 16, 1. 21), »be t)i'im Htelende Ot^tON be hys leorning- 

 cnyhtnm». — And in the S. Engl. Gospels (for instance in S. Matthew 

 in Anglo-Saxon and Northnmbrian Versions, synoptically arranged. Cam- 

 bridge 18.58, 4'°), we have in the older S. E. codex, S. Mat. 5, 36, 

 Or)l)E, but in the later ODERXE and ODDNE. Many more examples 

 could be added, but these are sufticient. The curious ODERNE above 

 is in fact a double comparative. We can take the -ER form of Ol)f)E = 

 ODDER, or the -N form, ODDEN, ODDON. Both together will give us 

 ODERNE. These English instances show local dialects following the N 

 type when making an emphatic comparative. In Germany the word went 

 another way. At the close of the Ohg. period there creeps in an em- 

 phatic comparative, and it rapidly spreads in the Mid. Hg till it becomes 

 ))orthodox» in the Mod. Germ., — but it takes the R ending, and thus 

 becomes ODAR, ODIR, the mod. German ODER. 



Another English word, OFT, has gone the same way. It was 

 often used as an emphatic comparative, and became ÖFTER, but also 

 took the N shape as OFTEN. This OFTEN has now become a new 

 positive^ alike in meaning to the older OFT, and we now use it as an 

 Adj. and Adv., OFTEN, OFTENER, OFTENEST, — just as some of 

 our forefathers had said ODERNP]. 



Minute enquiries in other directions and other tungs may bring 

 fresh proofs of this -AN among the Scando-Gothic tribes. But enough 

 has been collected to show that this development must rest on older 

 ■usage. And the best key to this older usage is the Sanscrit-group, which 

 has 2 comparative forms, botli which (especiall)^ the -R) have left their 

 marks in all our Aryan talks. The usual Sanscrit degree-couple, scarce 

 in Europe, is -TARA, sup. -TARA(S). -TA', '-MA. The other and rarer, 

 but general in Europe, is that in -lYANS, -YANS, or (N nasalized) 

 -lYAS, -YAS, sup. -ISTA, -STA. The N remaining sharp and the S 

 (weakened to R) falHng away, we get the comparative in -AN. But the 

 N may be nasalized and drop out, giving us -lYAS, -ISTA. The best 

 account of all this in simple language is in Bopp's ^) Vergleichende 

 Grammatik, 8^°. 2""^ ed., Berlin. At p. 32 and fol. of Vol. 2, Berlin 



') In mv opinion Bopp would have been only too glad to add these interesting 

 Scando-Auglic examples of -.\N, in contirination of his reasoning, — if he had been 

 aware of them. 



Nova Acta Reg. Soc. Sc. Ups. Ser. III 4 



