Gripla

						THE QUESTION OF I-UMLAUT                              359

Norse short stem words like the Class III weak verbs, i-umlaut com-

monly failed to take place.

For the second hypothesis it may be argued that the evidence of

such verbs as trúa, una, duga, þola and þora where the i-umlaut has

survived into Modern Icelandic, might suggest that in the most com-

mon verbs the preterite optative was most likely to be used and there-

fore the umlaut most likely to be preserved. It is also possible to point

to gá, horfa and skorta, where the umlaut appears to have been lost,

and maintain that they reflect the typical development from Old Norse

into Modern Icelandic. In addition it must also be kept in mind that

the preterite optative of weak verbs has changed from Old Norse to

Modern Icelandic in the same way as the preterite optative of the

strong verbs; i.e. the lst person singular now ends with -i (e.g. vekti,

yndi), whereas the plural forms have adopted the same endings as the

preterite indicative (i.e. -um, -uð, -u).

The major obstacle in coming to any conclusion about this problem

is clearly the lack of evidence for Old Norse. It is not that all the nec-

essary information doesn't exist, it is simply inaccessible. Nearly all

editions of Old Norse texts are either normalized in their spelling or

based on a very small portion of the existent manuscripts. A prose or a

verse concordance, which would be the ideal key in a study of this

kind, is unfortunately not to be expected in the near future, and until

this situation improves it is difficult to see how the extent of i-umlaut

in the preterite optative of this class of verbs in Old Norse can be de-

termined conclusively. In the meantime, however, there is every rea-

son to caution against those handbooks that only give one or two ex-

amples of umlauted preterite optative forms (like 'vekða' for in-

stance), and thus lead the reader to conclude that they are typical

representatives of the Class III weak verbs in Old Norse.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Flasdieck, H.M., 'Untersuchungen úber die germanischen schwachen Verben

III. Klasse unter besonderer Beriicksichtigung des Altenglischen', Anglia,

lix, 1935, 1-192.

Gordon, E.V., An Introduction to Old Norse, Oxford 1927.

Halldór Halldórsson, íslenzk málfrœði handa æðri skólum, Rvík 1950.