Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1994, Side 172

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Veturliði Óskarsson
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SUMMARY
This paper discusses i-umlaut in the preterite conjunctive of the so called é-verbs
in Old Norse. First a few basic aspects of Magnús Fjalldal’s approach in his paper
in Gripla 1990 dealing with the same matter are criticized. It then goes on to the
main characteristics of é-verbs, presenting a list of é-verbs with i'-umlauted preterite
subjunctive,examples found in the dictionary archive of the Amamagnæan Dictionary
of Old Norse’Prose at the Univerity of Copenhagen, as well as in a text corpus in the
Institute of Linguistics at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík. The paper closes with
a discussion of some of the characteristics of the verbs in question.
Searching through these two corpora reveiled examples of i-umlaut in 13 out of
70-80 Old Norse verbs that can with reasonable certainty be regarded as original
é-verbs (besides the “irregular” é-verbs hafa, kaupa, segja andþegja), i.e. duga, horfa,
ná, sama, skorta, spara, trúa, ugga, una, vaka, vara, þola and þora. It is not likely that
examples will be found in Old Norse literature of i-umlauted preterite conjunctive of
other é-verbs than those indicated here.
This survey supports the general belief that /-umlaut in preterite conjunctive of
é-verbs was never regular in Old Norse. However, examples were found which show
that i-umlaut is more common, albeit only slightly, than one would conclude from what
Magnús Fjalldal said in his paper.
Veturliði Oskarsson
Eiðismýri 26
170 Seltjarnarnes
veturosk@ibc.is