Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2003, Page 106

104 Andrea de Leeuw van Weenen
this is the only occurrence of the pronoun. Text e will be discussed
below.
With regard to the forms with ‘0’ it should be remarked that the
characters ‘e’ and ‘0’ show an overlap in their shapes, so that it is
often impossible to decide from the shape, which character is intend-
ed. There are quite a few examples of ‘e’ in my (and Wisén’s and
Larsson’s) transcription, where the character in the manuscript is
indistinguishable from ‘0’, and where the transcription is based on the
identification of the word rather than on the identification of the indi-
vidual character. There are many instances of ‘e’, which cannot be
read as ‘0’, but conversely there are no examples of ‘0’ in the tran-
scription, where the reading ‘e’ can be excluded with certainty.9 For
any of the n0kk(v)- forms found in S, it was possible to identify
instances of ‘e’ in the near vicinity, which looked exactly the same as
the character transcribed as ‘0’ in those words. Where the second syl-
lable has lost its /v/, the ‘0’ is of course more certain than in those
forms which have retained the /v/. Further it can be remarked that no
forms are found with ‘eo’. This may be accidental, as the cases are few
and text e does not employ the digraph ‘eo’ at all.
Of the 13 exceptional forms 11 have (or can be considered to have)
‘0’ : 4 in text e, one in text g, 5 in text nv one in text qn. Text g has
further once nakkvat, once nakkvarr, and once nekkvarr. Text qn has
further once nekkverr and once “nockorö”.
Text e has twice nekkverr, once nakkverr, 5 times nakkvat, twice
n0kkvi, and further n0cquern and n0ck0rum. Text n^ has two exam-
ples of nekkverr, 4 of nakkvat, one of nekkvat, one of nekkvi, one of
n0kkvi and 4 of n0kkurr. Both texts e and nx are younger than most
of the other texts in S, as indicated by their use of ‘i’ instead of ‘e’
in unstressed syllables. Text k, which also has ‘i’ in unstressed syl-
lables although proportionally far less than texts e or nv has a single
9 As in S r rotunda occurs only after ‘o’ and o-based characters, never after ‘e’,
the occurrence of r rotunda after such a dubious character would tip the balance in
favour of ‘0’. But as no r rotunda are found after such dubious characters, and as
straight r is used both after ‘o’, ‘0’, and ‘e’, the choice of ‘r’ cannot aid us in this
respect.