Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1999, Page 174

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Flugur, smágreinar og umræðuefni
Metathesis in /skt/-sequences in Faroese
HJALMAR P. PETERSEN
1. The applicabilty of the rule
Faroese adjectives form neuter by adding -t in nom./acc.sg.neut. Some
examples are given in (1) (see e.g. Lockwood 1955:46ff.):'
(1) masculine feminine
stór-ur stór
lang-ur lang
neuter
stór-t ‘big’
lang-t ‘long’
In an inflectional language like Faroese, various phonological
processes may affect the stem of words when an inflectional ending is
added. Thus Lockwood discusses a number of processes that affect
adjectival stems when the neuter ending /-t/ is added. One process not
mentioned by Lockwood will be discussed here. It applies to adjecti-
ves with stem final /-sk/: When the neuter ending /-t/ is added, a rule
of metathesis applies to the stems. Note that metathesis is not reflect-
ed in the spelling:
(2) masculine feminine neuter
feskur fesk feskt [fekst] ‘fresh’
danskur donsk danskt [darjst] ‘Danish’
Other examples include raskt [jakst] ‘good’, naskt [nakst] ‘imperti-
nent’, sjónskt [jœqst] ‘visible’, lúnskt [lYrjst] ‘foxy’, names of lan-
guages (and the identical adjectives) like spanskt ‘Spanish’, enskt
‘English’ and so forth. This process can also occur in the inflection ol
verbs, cf. ynskja ‘wish’, ynskti [irjsti], ynskt [irjst], treskja ‘thresh
(com)’, treskti [thresktl], treskt [threskt].
This metathesis is quite regular and obvious in most cases. Thus
the metathesis of stem-final /-sk/ is very clear in the pronunciation of
examples like feskt [fekst] and the results are also obvious in exampleS
where an /n/ precedes the stem-final /-sk/ as in danskur ‘Danish’. All
forms except nom./acc.sg.neut. have /nsk/ [nsk] in the stem, e.g.
1 I would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for remarks
and advice.