Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1992, Page 173

Um örlög 0 í íslensku
171
Of the 0-vowel was determined by a complex of events and trends in the history of
Icelandic. Phonologically, or phonetically, there was a trend or “metarule” (cf. Lass
1974, 1976) toward delabialising /0/ as well as other front rounded vowels (ý > í, y >
i, 0 > ce). At the same time, there probably was a tendency toward centralisation of
ihe old short vowels, among them the old /0/ and /<?/, fronting the latter, and perhaps
backing the former. This trend interfered with the delabialisation trend, and had the
effect that in a great number of forms the old /0/ leaned toward the old /p/ to form
the new /ö/-phoneme. In many cases it seems that a following front unrounded vowel
enhanced the delabialisation, e.g. in words like erindi and erlendur < flrendi, 0rlendr.
The morphology also had an effect in regularising some altemations between rounded
and unrounded vowels in forms like koma - kemur, and later, or dialectally, sökkva -
sekkur. To add to the confusion and uncertainty about the fate of the old /0/, it is likely
that different dialects had a different influence at different times on the development of
the standard and the written language. All of this had the effect that the correspondence
between the standardised OI and the modem norm is not a simple one in the case of
the old 0. A phoneme is dissolved, and its ‘homeless’ tokens are distributed among the
neighbours under more than one influence.
Heimspekideild Háskóla íslands
Arnagarði við Suðurgötu
iOl Reykjavík
kristarn@rhi.hi.is