Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1980, Page 202

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Janez Oresnik
the history of Icelandic. The rule for the formation of the short impera-
tive was formulated on the basis of the many pairs such as the long
imperative haltu versus the short imperative ha.lt (of halda): the long
imperative minus u = the short imperative. This clipping rule was then
generalised to cases which did not participate in the formulation of the
rule to begin with, with the result that clipped imperatives such as kond,
takt, gerð, leggð arose from the long imperatives kondu, taktu, gerðu,
leggðu, respectively.—Under the pressure from the long imperatives
(e. g. kondu), which are the basic imperative variants, the clipped im-
peratives (e.g. kond) are losing ground, just like the short imperatives
(e.g. kotn), except in the one usage in which the long imperative (e.g.
kondu) was of no avail: when the clipped imperative (e.g. kond) was
followed by emphatic þú, e. g. Lest ÞÚ bókina, ekki hann.—The formal
style has kept the short imperative + þú in this function—except with
vert of vera and verða9—so that the clipped imperatives—barring vert
—now occur in informal style only.
The above aspects of the history of the imperative singular support
my parallel account of the history of the lest and ferð types. In parti-
cular, the history of the imperative singular shows that any 2. p. sg.
form ending in suffixed þú is the basic morphological variant of that
second person singular, and that the remaining variants of that second
person singular are derived from their basic variant in suffixed þú
through clipping.
1.3
I assume that the clipped 2. p. sg. forms lest and ferð were optional
variants of the old short forms les and fer to begin with. But gradually
the innovations (lest, ferð) prevailed over the inherited forms (les, fer)
because the innovations (lest, ferð) were more than the inherited forms
(les, fer) similar to their basic variants, the long forms (lestu, ferðu).
Also, the process by which the clipped forms (lest, ferð) came into being
is still active, and keeps producing the clipped forms. Another reason
for the success of the clipped forms may be this. Most Icelandic verbs
9 The clipped form vert penetrated the formal style probably because it was
more frequent than other clipped imperatives in the texts of the past centuries, and
was therefore supported by the written tradition. More on this in OreSnik 1980.