Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2005, Page 102

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Haraldur Bernharðsson
SUMMARY
‘Ég er [‘I am’], ég vill [‘I want’], and égfœr [‘I get’]. On the Development of the
Present Indicative Singular’
Keywords: historical morphology, Natural Morphology, analogical change
In Modem Icelandic, the verb vilja ‘want, wish’ is currently undergoing a morphologi-
cal change in the present indicative: beside the original lst person singular vil, the form
vill, originating in the 3rd person, is rapidly gaining ground. In the 1 st person it is thus
common to hear ég vill ‘I want’ beside the standard ég vil. At the same time there is
also a tendency to replace the standard 3rd person form vill with the lst person form
vil; hann/him/það vill ‘he/she/it wants’ thus sometimes becomes hann/hún/það vil.
As described in section 2, these morphological changes in the present indicative
of vilja are relatively recent, not appearing until the 20th century. Data counts based
on written language available on the Intemet indicate that the change in the lst per-
son, (ég) vil -* vill, predominates the change in the 3rd person, (hann/hún/það) vill
-* vil. In child language it is not uncommon to hear 3rd person verbal forms used in
the lst and 2nd person; this tendency, however, is rarely witnessed outside child
language—except in the verb vilja. The morphological changes currently underway
in the verb vilja raise two main questions which are the focus of this paper: First, why
is there a clear tendency to use the 3rd person form of the verb vilja in the lst person
after language acquisition has been completed and the same tendency is no longer
detectable in other verbs? Second, why is there also at the same time an opposite ten-
dency to use the 1 st person form of vilja in the 3rd person?
As discussed in section 3, it is likely that the complexity of the singular paradigm of
vilja serves as a trigger for the morphological changes: the standard paradigm, lst sing.
vil-0, 2nd sing. vil-t, 3rd sing. vill-0, contains three different inflected forms and two
different stem forms (vi7- and vill-). Each of the two ongoing morphological changes
neutralizes the distinction of the lst and 3rd person, resulting in a paradigm with only
two different inflected forms: 1 vill-0, 2 vil-t, 3 vill-0 or 1 vil-0, 2 vil-t, 3 vil-0. As
the merger of the lst and 3rd person appears not to be a general tendency in the verbal
system, it is necessary to examine existing pattems in the singular paradigm of other
Icelandic verbs. The framework of Natural Morphology as set forth by Wurzel (1989) is
used to determine which of the existing pattems are most natural or system-congmous.
Section 4 provides a survey of contrastive pattems in the verbal morphology of the
singular active in Modem Icelandic and Old Icelandic. Four pattems emerge: Pattem A
with a two-way distinction where the lst person is contrasted by the identical forms of
the 2nd and 3rd person; this can described as 1 * 2 = 3. Pattem B also has a two-way
distinction where the lst and 3rd person have identical forms opposed the the 2nd per-
son: 1 = 3 * 2. In Pattem C, on the other hand, each person has its unique form: 1 * 2
* 3. Finally, Pattem D has three identical forms: 1 =2 = 3. The survey shows that Pat-
tems A and B predominate in the singular active, whereas Pattems C and especially
Pattem D are less common. Moreover, the morphological development ffom Old