Gripla - 01.01.1977, Qupperneq 180

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GRIPLA
The same type of lexical representations is likely to be valid for the
pöntun nouns. A typical lexical representation would be: /pönt/ in the
singular, /pant/ in the plural (assuming that -an-/-un- pertain to the
case desinences). The only difference from the gjöf nouns would be that
no morphological rule would apply in the genitive singular, and the /ö/
of the singular lexical representation would remain intact, pöntunar.
Nouns such as afhöfðun ‘decapitation’ would have /ö/ both in their
singular and plural lexical representations.
The u-stems are likely to have /ö/ in their lexical representations, at
changing declension class: If such stems originally contain /a/ as their only or
rightmost vowel, and if they join the ranks of Icelandic strong feminine nouns,
they behave in one of the following ways. EITHER such stems develop two-stem
lexical representations, with /ö/ in the singular, with /a/ in the plural, OR they
keep a one-stem lexical representation, with /a/, in which case they do not under-
go any u-umlaut in the singular (there being no rule of the form /a/—>/ö/ in the
singular of strong feminine nouns), but do undergo it in the dative plural (where
there operates a rule of the form /a/—>/ö/). This prediction is borne out by the
facts:
Classical Icelandic nagl ‘nail’, root noun, masculine, became feminine in pre-
Reformation times. Its singular joined the ranks of the strong feminine nouns and
the lexical representation of the singular developed /ö/ instead of /a/, so that the
forms are now nom. sg. nögl, gen. sg. nagl-ar, just as with gjöf.
In Classical Icelandic the feminine /ö-stem noun öx ‘axe’ contained /ö/ in all of
its case forms: gen. sg. öx-ar, dat./acc. sg. öx-i, nom./acc. pl. öx-ar, etc. In the
modem language the noun has joined the gjöf nouns as far as its root vowel is
concerned (lexical representation sg. /öx/, pl. /ax/), partially also with respect to
the endings (nom./acc. pl. öx-ar > ax-ir), so that now the nominative singular is
öx-i, gen. sg. ax-ar, dat./acc. sg. öx-i, nom./acc. pl. ax-ir, etc.
Classical Icelandic dögg ‘dew’, lögg ‘croze’, feminine wö-stems, have later been
attracted into the orbit of the gjöf nouns, i.e. they have assumed partially new
endings and developed two-stem lexical representations, sg. /dögg/, pl. /dagg/,
and sg. /lögg/, pl. /lagg/. Cf. old gen. sg. dögg-var, lögg-var, modern dagg-ar
(Bandle 1956:226), lagg-ar; old nom. pl. dögg-var, lögg-var, rnodern dagg-ir,
lagg-ir.
Cases of domestic and naturalized stems which manifest feminine one-stem
lexical representations. These can be illustrated with popular loanwords such as
art f. ‘sort, kind’ (art- undergoes u-umlaut freely otherwise, e.g. in vanartaður
‘vicious’, dat. pl. vanörtuðum), vakt f. ‘watch’ (umlauted vakt- in the sundry forms
of vakta vb. ‘watch’, vaktari ‘guardian’, etc.), forakt f. ‘contempt’ (umlauted -akt-
in forakta ‘despise’), andakt f. ‘devotion’, magt, inakt ‘might, honour’, dragt f.
‘coat and skirt’, which keep their /a/ unchanged in their singular inflected forms.
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