Estructuras comparativas intensivas en la Edad Media: el adjetivo checo ‘černý’ y el nórdico antiguo ‘svartr’ en comparación con el adjetivo español ‘negro’

Abstract

In this article, we study the intensive comparative structures applied to the adjective negro (‘black’) in medieval Spanish, in comparison with the homologous structures in medieval Czech (adjective černý) and Old Norse (adjective svartr). We present and comment numerous examples that contain different second terms of the comparison, from the most frequent (pez ‘pitch’, carbón ‘coal’, cuervo ‘crow’…) to the rarest (olla ‘pot’, diablo ‘devil’…). Numerous convergences are observed, largely due to the existence of deep common cultural bases, such as Christianity and the literary tradition of classical antiquity, but also numerous divergences and even singularities of each of the languages considered.

Keywords

• collocation
• intensity old czech
• old spanish
• old norse