Íslenzk tunga - 01.01.1961, Page 39

OAKV. FOKN. NOKKUR, NOKKUtí
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(section V). The ultimate result of the changes in the second syllable was that
this syllable, from being originally a second member of a compound, inflected
in the earliest period as simple huerr, huat, was reduced to the status of an
unstressed suffix (section VI). This implied a rearrangement of the phonemic
structure of the second syllable on the pattern of that of unstressed syllables
in general, so that (1) the vowel of the second syllable was replaced by one of
the three vowels characteristic of the unstressed position (see references in foot-
note 29), viz. by [u], i. e. o, later u; (2) the preceding u (in -kuer-, -kuat)
disappeared; and (3) tlie following i (in -kueriom etc.) was lost (section VII).
This, accordingly, was a change of a kind that may be termed ‘structurally
conditioned analogical sound-change’ (see reference in footnote 30). As shown
by the earliest examples of the changes in the second syllable (section VIII),
the development at tlie beginning proceeded in two directions (section IX);
(1) From nakkuar-, the fem. sg. and neut. pl. ngkkuor (ms. nocquor) was
formed by a regular process of analogy, with the morphophonemic interchange
a — p in stressed, a — o in unstressed position, on the pattern of gamall —
ggmol etc. Similarly, from this stem, the dat. nQkkuoro(m) (ms. nocquorom)
was a regular formalion, since a was automatically replaced by stressed p and
unstressed o before a third syllable with o (see reference in footnote 39). (2)
Trisyllabic forms like dat. nekkueriom were changed to nfikkorom (ms.
npccorum etc.) by assimilation of the vowel of the second syllable to that of
the third, which may be considered a kind of ‘structurally conditioned analogi-
cal sound-change’, o being the mosl frequent vowel in the second syilable
followed by a third with o. From the dat. this form was transferred, by analogy,
first to the fem. sg. and neut. pl. nflkkor and then to other forms of the
paradigm. After the merger of p and 0 to ö, in the early thirteenth century, the
result was the coexistence of two stems, nakkuar-/nökkuor- and nökkor-. How-
ever, unlike a and p earlier, between a and ö there was no relationship of auto-
matic phonemic interchange (see reference in footnote 41); therefore, the stem
form nökkuor- was extended, hy analogy, at the expense of nakkuar-, producing,
e. g., masc. nökkuorr, neut. nökkuot etc. This stem then disappeared completely,
in the fourteenth century, whereas nökkor- was preserved (as nokkor-). The
rounding of the vowel of the first syllable (e > p) was concomitant with, and
probably a consequence of, the rounding in the second syllable: prior to the
change in the second syllable, p is very rare in the first syllable; it occurs
mainly in the dat. nQkkue (footnote 51), where it may be regarded, in accord-
ance with the current view, as a case of m-umlaut. The subsequent change of
ó to o—which probably began in the thirteenth century, although there are
traces of the ö down to the sixteenth century at least—may, it is suggested
(section XI), be due to the influence of the vowel of the second syllable, in the
same way as earlier in nakkuat < nekkuat. The main argument for this is the