Gripla - 01.01.1977, Síða 174

170
GRIPLA
pertains to the same declension as gamall as far as the u-umlauting of
its vowels is concemed, whereas jarinn does not.
The stem-intemal /y/ does not trigger u-umlaut in a preceding /a/
of the same stem; cf. nom. sg. m. fagur (versus nom. sg. f. jögur), nom.
sg. akur (dat. pl. ökrurri), nom. sg. mastur (nom. pl. möstur). An excep-
tion is the oblique singular jöður of faðir ‘father’.
What phonological material can intervene between the end of the
stem containing a u-umlauted vowel and the end of the word containing
that stem? Nothing need intervene, see (22a). If anything does inter-
vene, the most usual segment string immediately after the morpheme
(22) a. börn, önnur, sumur, folöld, japönsk
b. börn-um, öðr-u, folöld-um, kandídöt-um, fapönsk-um, sög-u,
köll-um, stör-ðu; but cf. pöntunar
c. dal-ur, albansk-ur (*döl-ur, etc.)
boundary begins with /yC0/, see (22b). In fact, if a lexical item con-
tains a vowel which is susceptible to u-umlaut, that vowel invariably
assumes the umlauted shape (/ö, y/) before an ending beginning with
/y/, with the following exception: the desinence initial /y/ of the
nominative singular ending -ur is only accompanied by u-umlaut in the
preceding stem if the u-umlaut can be ascribed to some other cause
than the presence of -ur. For instance, there is u-umlaut in the nomina-
tive singular of the monosyllabic u-stem nouns: skjöld-ur ‘shield’, cf.
gen. sg. skjald-ar; that this /a—ö/ has nothing to do with the -ur
follows from the fact that those u-stem nouns which do not end in -ur
in the nominative singular nevertheless undergo u-umlaut in that case
form, e.g. björn ‘bear’, cf. gen. sg. bjarn-ar. For examples of lexical
items that do not undergo u-umlaut before the nominative singular -ur,
see (22c). (The fact that u-umlaut is not triggered before -ur is not the
property of ANY ending -ur, only of the nominative singular case
ending. The -ur of the nominative/accusative plural of weak feminine
nouns behaves otherwise: nom./acc. pl. sög-ur, with u-umlaut, of saga
‘saga’.)
The ending of the imperative singular with appended personal pro-
noun contains /y/, e.g. imp. far-ðu of fara ‘go, travel’, skammastu þín
of skammast sín ‘be ashamed of oneself’, yet the /y/ of this ending does
not trigger u-umlaut in the preceding stem, although the verbal stems in