Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1960, Page 50

48
JAKOB BENEDIKTSSON
tvenns konar /-i á undan / (sbr. norðlenzka mismuninn á orðum eins
og holt og hollt). Meðan þessi tvenns konar framburður á /-i hélzt
hefur hann vafalaust stutt að því að varðveita greinarmuninn á yngra
og eldra lcL. Hins vegar er ekki vitað hversu lengi þelta tvenns konar
1 hélzt í öðrum samböndum en Id, og verður ekki gerð nein tilraun
l il að skera úr því hér. Augljóst er þó að í innstöðu hefur liann hlotið
að hverfa þegar // milli sérhljóða breyttist í dl í framburði, en sú
breyting varð ekki síðar en á 15.—16. öld.:!8 Mætti þá að órannsök-
uðu máli telja líklegt að tvenns konar / í öðrum samböndum hefði
ekki haldizt miklu lengur, og hefðu þá fallið þær stoðir sem tvenns
konar Id hefði haft í málkerfinu.
OrSabók Háskóla íslands,
Reykjavík.
SUMMARY
Old Icel. Ið, nð after short stressed vowels became Id, nd in the first half of
the fourteenth century (e. g. jjglði, skilði (pret.) > jjöldi, skildi; synð, vanði
(pret.) > synd, vandi). Various scholars have thought that / and n were cacu-
minal or supradental in this position in Old Icel. and therefore different from
earlier Id, nd, where l and n were dental consonants. Earlier scholars believed
that the l, n also in the later groups Id, nd (coming from Ið, nð) became dental
at the same time or shortly after the change ð > d. This, however, can be true
only of nd: there is no trace, in later Icel., of a distinction between earlier and
later nd, neither in orthography nor rhyme. But the case of Id is different.
In the orthography of Old Icel. manuscripts there is noticeable an early tend-
ency to write lld, whereas Ið (Iþ) is the general rule, and after the change
Ið > Id earlier Ið always appears as Id whereas earlier Id always appears as
lld; thus, in orthography, there is a distinction between two /-phonemes in the
position hcfore d. Both rhymc and the regularity of this spelling during three
centuries prove that this was not merely an orthographical convention.
ln the last few decades various scholars have pointed out that the distinction
in spelling between Id and lld was maintained in some Icelandic manuscripts
until the seventeenth century. The present author has investigated rhyme in
38 Sjá Björn K. Þórólfsson, Urn íslenskar orðmyndir á 14. og 15. öld og breyl-
ingar þeirra úr jornmálinu (Reykjavík 1925), bls. xxxi—xxxii.