Gripla - 01.01.1990, Page 362

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GRIPLA
go back to the same person, i.e. Ludvig Wimmer. Other scholars such
as Iversen, Heusler, Wessén and Gordon merely repeat different parts
of the same data without adding any new information.
In his Oldnordisk Formlære Wimmer does not specifically state that
umlaut took place in the preterite optative of all Class III weak verbs
where it was possible, however, it is obvious from his discussion that
he expects the i-umlaut to apply to the class as a whole. Heusler and
Iversen as well as most other authors of Old Norse grammars, do not
address themselves directly to the question of i-umlaut in the preterite
optative of this class but invariably the verb ‘vaka’ is selected as its
typical representative. Both Wessén and Gordon, however, make the
claim that umlaut actually took place without noting any exceptions or
further qualifying their remarks.
For Modern Icelandic there is general concensus among scholars
that with only few exceptions i-umlaut is not to be found in the preter-
ite optative of this class. Valtýr Guðmundsson, Stefán Einarsson and
Kress all agree in this respect. Halldór Halldórsson is somewhat more
cautious in his remark that ‘í nútíðarmáli er i-hljóðvarp ekki alltaf í
vth. (opt.) af é-sögnum, t.d. horfði, brosti.’2
It is clear from the evidence that Modern Icelandic presents that ei-
ther the preterite optative of these verbs failed to take i-umlaut for the
most part in Old Norse and therefore does not exhibit umlauted forms
to any great extent in Modern Icelandic, or that the umlaut actually
did take place in Old Norse but was subsequently lost in Modern Ice-
landic.
The first argument is supported by the fact that Wimmer, who ap-
pears to be the major authority on umlaut in this category, was trying
to establish a normalized and not a descriptive grammar for Old
Norse. His examples are relatively few and possibly misleading. At
any rate neither he, nor anyone else for that matter, cares to give any
sources for his data, which in turn makes its reliability subject to
doubt. Furthermore, it is difficult to explain why the i-umlaut should
virtually disappear in the preterite optative of this class and not in any
other morphological context. Finally it could be noted that in Old
2 Halldór Halldórsson, íslenzk málfrœði handa æðri skólum, Reykjavík 1950, p. 168.