Gripla - 01.01.1977, Qupperneq 177

MODERN ICELANDIC U-UMLAUT
173
on other factors. Specifically, I am not aware of any cases where one
inflectional form of a lexical item would display one type of u-umlaut,
e.g. Initial umlaut, and another form of the same paradigm would dis-
play another type of u-umlaut, e.g. Final umlaut. For instance, as far as
I know, there is no tendency to use héruð- more than héröð- (both of
hérað ‘district’) in the dative plural, and héröð- more than héruð- in the
nominative/accusative plural.
U-umlaut takes place in the following morphological environments:
(I) Nouns susceptible to u-umlaut. All such nouns display u-umlaut
in the dative plural: aftan(n) ‘evening’ versus öftn-um, barn ‘child’
versus börn-um, gjöf ‘present’ versus gjöf-um (nom. pl. gjaf-ir), gata
‘street’ versus göt-um, etc.
The nouns of the neuter gender also display u-umlaut in the nomina-
tive/accusative plural: land ‘land’ versus lönd, hjarta ‘heart’ versus
hjört-u, etc.
Strong feminine nouns also display u-umlaut in the nominative,
dative and accusative singular: nom./dat./acc. gjöf ‘present’, etc.; the
pöntun nouns even in the genitive singular, e.g. pöntunar.
The u-stem nouns also display u-umlaut in the nominative and ac-
cusative singular (and, archaically, accusative plural): björn ‘bear’,
nom. sg. björn, acc. sg. björn, archaic acc. pl. björn-u; the söfnuður
nouns even in the dative singular, nominative and accusative plural:
dat. sg. söfnuði, nom. pl. söfnuðir, acc. pl. söfnuði.
Weak feminine nouns also display u-umlaut in the oblique singular
and in the nominative/accusative plural: saga ‘history’, oblique sg.
sög-u, nom./acc. pl. sög-ur.
Comments on a few exceptional nouns: (a) Faðir ‘father’. This lexical
item being one of the most basic and frequent in the language, it is not
unnatural that it is irregular; its oblique singular stem is föður-, its
plural stem is feðr- before a vowel, feður- elsewhere. (b) Regin n.
‘gods’, plurale tantum, has a in the genitive plural, ragna, and ö in the
dative plural, rögnum, otherwise e, regin; like faðir, regin is an excep-
tional noun. (c) Altari n. ‘altar’: its most usual nominative/accusative
plural is ölturu. It is the only word of its kind as far as its inflexion is
concerned, whereas the u-umlaut takes place in the same case forms as
with the type barn: in the nominative/accusative and dative plural. (d)