Gripla - 01.01.1977, Page 165

MODERN ICELANDIC U-UMLAUT
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an open set as well. For examples see (12). Their association with the
lexical items in the rightmost column of (12) is strong. Initial umlaut is
realized in the whole singular and in the dative plural: pöntun, gen. sg.
pöntun-ar, dat. pl. pöntun-um. Many of these nouns, being abstract, are
(12) Examples of those feminine nouns in -un used both in the singu-
lar and plural
pöntun ‘commercial order’,
kvörtun ‘complaint’
fölsun ‘forgery’
töpun ‘loss’
verzlun ‘store’
einkunn ‘school mark’4
panta ‘order’ vb.
kvarta ‘complain’
falsa ‘forge’
tapa ‘lose’
verzla ‘do business’
used in the singular only, in which case they do not display any u-um-
laut alternation, but exhibit lexicalized /ö/ and-or /y/.
However, it is doubtful whether the nouns sub (12) are genuine in-
stances of Initial umlaut. They can be analyzed so that -un- and -an-
pertain to the endings, see (13). There is even a weak argument in
(13) nom. sg. pant + Yn
acc. pant + Yn
dat. pant + Yn
gen. pant + Ynar
pl. pant + amr
pant + anir
pant + YnYm
pant + ana
favour of the cut being before un/an: The noun in -un made from the
verb kristalla ‘crystallize’ is kristöllun, not kristullun. This speaks
against the pötitun nouns undergoing Initial umlaut, and for their
undergoing Final umlaut and for the main morphological cut being
before -un. However, the argument is nonconclusive, in that it could be
argued that nouns like kristöllun are simply exceptional, or due to ana-
logy with their respective word-derivational bases. (The base verb
kristalla has kristölluðu as its third person plural preterite.) If the ana-
4 The feminine noun einkunn, originally a compound, is now pronounced as a
simplex (velar n before k, short n at the end), and has developed a new plural
einkanir beside einkunnir (Böðvarsson 1963 s.v. einkanir). The pl. einkanir means
‘school marks’. Its origin is due to proportional analogy: seinkun ‘delay’: seinkanir
— einkunn: X, where X=einkanir. The paradigm einkunn, einkanir belongs with
pöntun, pantanir.
Gripla 11