Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 13.07.1981, Side 225

On Some Icelandic Irregular Imperative Forms 215
the imp. sg. heyrðu of heyra ‘hear’ was interpreted as the dental stem
heyrð- + u. Rule (4) was overgeneralised to the verbs listed in Table
(2), so that new imp. forms such as orktu, keyptu arose, and to the verb
etja, with the result that the imp. attu came into being.
(4) To form the long imp. sg., take the sg. pret. ind. dental stem of the
verb and add (non-umlauting) u.
Formulation (4) supersedes formulation (1) above.
The example attu shows that it is the shape of the dental stem used
in the SINGULAR pret. ind. that must be mentioned in rule (4): the
dental stem att- + u = attu. That the singular shape of the dental stem
is thus used is understandable: the new imperatives of Table (2) are
also singular forms. (In order to constrain the theory of analogy as
much as possible, I will assume in what follows that it is the shape of
the dental stem in the SECOND PERSON sg. pret. ind. that is used in
the formation of the new imperatives of Table (2) and of attu. This
assumption, made possible by the fact that the imp. sg. is also a second
person form, has no consequences for the actual shapes of the new
imperatives.)
For the theory of morphology, the example attu shows, as a first
approximation, that it is easier for speakers to notice the (substantial)
PARTIAL formal identity of semantically/functionally MORE related
forms than the TOTAL formal identity of semantically/functionally
LESS related forms. In our case, speakers were quicker to notice the
partial formal identity between, say, the imp. sg. heyrðu and the 2p. sg.
pret. ind. heyrðir, than to notice the total formal identity between the
imp. sg. heyrðu and the 3p. pl. pret. ind. heyrðu. If it were the other
way round, attu would probably not have come into being.
3- On the basis of the very many pairs consisting of an imp. sg. and a
corresponding 2p. sg. PRESENT ind., where these two forms contain
identical roots, one would expect that the rule for the formation of the
imp. sg. would at least optionally be (5), q.v. For instance, the imp. sg.
gefðu and the 2p. sg. pres. ind. gefur of gefa ‘give’ contain the same
form of the root. The semantic/functional similarity between the imp.
(5) To form the imp. sg., take the root of the 2p. sg. pres. ind. (and add
affixed þú).