Keywords: historical linguistics, prepositional phrases, language change

This paper traces the development of various prepositional constructions containing various forms of the word mót. In the modern language these include á móti + dat. (‘towards (to meet); opposite to; against …’), til móts við + acc. (‘towards (to meet) …’) and (á) móts við + acc. (‘in the neighborhood of …’). As indicated, these phrases typically have some sort of a locative or directional meaning, sometimes with subtle nuances difficult to capture in a simple translation, but some of them can also have a more abstract derived meaning. It is shown that they have developed from a number of different prepositional constructions involving the noun mót ‘meeting, gathering’ in different case forms (acc. mót, dat. móti, gen. móts) but the word mót has lost its lexical meaning and become a grammatical function word (an adverb or a preposition).

A wealth of examples is given from sources ranging from the 12th century to the 20th century, showing how some of the old variantes of these prepositional constructions gradually lost ground while others became more popular and new ones were formed as mót (móti, móts) lost its lexical meaning in these contexts and became a grammatical function word.