linggrammar wrote:In short, the form "fleirum" is not a strong ending, b ut rather a "weak" ending, a vestige from the older language. In the dative plural, weak adjectives used to end in "-um". Leveling occurred whereby the ending is now "-u". This form is only used when alone. Compare: ásamt fleiri mönnum vs. ásamt fleirum.
You're confusing weak and strong declension. If anything, forms such as
fleirum belong to a strong declension pattern rather than a weak declension pattern, but then again, both Old and Modern Icelandic comparatives do NOT exhibit patterns that correspond to the weak declension in the positive and the superlative 100%, although the comparative declension could be considered weak in Old Icelandic in general.
Forms like
fleirum do occur in Old Icelandic in the dative plural of comparatives (see Noreen 1923: 297, §435 for declension tables (
spǫkurum is his example of a dative plural)), even though the general declension of the comparative is much closer to the weak declension than to the strong declension of adjectives in the positive.
What you say in replying to this 6 year old topic is the nearly the absolute reverse (you seem not to be taking into account that the declension of positives NEVER resembled that of the comparatives 100%, in all of attested history) of what is the truth.
Best regards
dunkelwald
References:
Noreen, Adolf (1923):
Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre). Unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen. Vierte vollständig umgearbeitete Auflage. Halle (Saale): Niemeyer.