Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1981, Page 110

108 Kristján Arnason
are, as it has already been mentioned, usually classified according to the
accentual pattem of the cadence.
Another potential source of rhythm is, as we have noted, quantity. A
distinction was upheld between short and long vowels in stressed
syllables in Old Irish. Thus, athir ‘father’ has a short vowel whereas
máthir ‘mother’ has a long one, reflecting the Proto-Indo-European
distinction. Also the fact that the long mid vowels e: and o: had a tend-
ency to diphthongise can be seen as supporting evidence that they were
indeed long. It seems, then, that a dichotomy between heavy and light
syllables was a potential source of a quantitative component in the
rhythm. However I have not seen any allusion to this in the literature
that I have had access to. But we may note that it seems to have been
the case with the rinnard metre (unlike dróttkvætt) that both heavy and
light syllables could carry the ictus of the trochiac ending of the line:
(6) Cros Chríst tar mo láma (heavy)
óm gúallib com basa (light)
Cros Chríst tar mo lesa (light)
Cros Chríst tar mor chasa (light) (Murphy 1956:32).
This is in marked contrast to the dróttkvætt with its constraint to the
effect that the final trochee had a heavy syllable in he ictus. So it seems
probable that what rhythm there was in the Irish poetry was stress
rhythm. In addition to the requirement that the penultimate syllable be
stressed, Stokes says that in the rinnard metre at least one other syllable
earlier in the line must be stressed. Still, I do not know of any attempt
to analyse the whole rinnard line into a smooth rhythmical pattem
beyond what is suggested by the trochaic ending.
If we accept it as a working hypothesis, to be confirmed or refuted,
that the Nordic dróttkvætt metre was to a large extent formed on the
model of the Irish rinnard, the following basic questions have to be
studied carefully:
1. Why did the Norsemen choose the rinnard in particular rather
than any of the other patterns that were used in Ireland and that
they are likely to have been familiar with?
2. What were the differences between Irish and Old Icelandic (or
Old Norse) prosody, and in what way did these differences affect
the assumed metrical borrowing?