Gripla - 01.01.1977, Side 168

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GRIPLA
aður are so few that they can be considered exceptions which do not
influence the general pattern.
The situation is similar with the adjectival superlatives and ordinal
numbers in -astur, e.g. latastur of latur ‘lazy’, strong dat. pl. lötusturrv,
tuttugasti ‘twentieth’, pl. tuttugustu. At least on the face of it lötustum
displays Initial umlaut. In reality the stem can be monosyllabic, lat-'—
löt-, and the case marker / + YstYm/, not / + astYm/. A weak argument
in favour of analyzing latastur as lat-astur comes from superlatives such
as heilagastur ‘most holy’, strong dat. pl. heilögustum, never heilugust-
um. The argument runs parallel to the one stated above about parrak-
aður, and is inconclusive for the same reasons as those given there.—
The superlative dasaðastur ‘most exhausted’, dat. pl. dösuðustum, can
contain an even longer ending in the dative plural, viz. -uðustum.
It might be argued that verbal forms such as the 3p. pl. pret. kölluðu
of kalla ‘call’ (versus the 3p. sg. pret. kallaði) display Initial umlaut.
However, it is not proved that the medial /y/ is synchronically derived
from /a/. It can just as well be that speakers analyze kölluðu as /kall
+ yöy/, in which case there is no sense in speaking of Initial umlaut in
connection with such forms. If there is only one cut in kölluðu, as I
assume, there is a special set of preteritival endings typically used with
the kalla verbs: sg. -aði, -aðir, -aði, pl. -uðum, -uðuð, -uðu, and corre-
spondingly in the middle voice, sg. -aðist, pl. -uðumst or -uðustum,
-uðuzt, -uðust. Again, a weak argument for the cut before -að-, -uð-
comes from verbal forms such as 3p. pl. pret. parrökuðu of parraka
‘keep pent in’. If the cut is immediately after k, the bisyllabic stem
parrak- can be said to have undergone the expected Final umlaut in
parrökuðu. However, such examples are few in number, and it could be
argued that they are exceptions whose idiosyncratic behaviour is due to
their respective word-derivational bases, cf. pret. kristölluðu of krist-
alla ‘crystallize’, and this from kristallur ‘crystal’, dat. pl. kristöllum.
2.4. Other types of u-umlaut. In addition to Final and Initial u-umlaut
Modern Icelandic displays a third pattern, exemplified sub (17), q.v.
All examples of this type known to me are bisyllabic NOUN stems.
Alternative forms with Final umlaut exist as well, and are listed in (17).
This and the paucity of examples testify to the marginality of this type
of u-umlaut in Modern Icelandic. However, the type has a long history
i