Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 13.07.1981, Page 226

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Janez Oresnik
sg. and the 2p. sg. PRESENT ind. is at least as great as the semantic/
functional similarity between the imp. sg. and the 2p. sg. PRETERITE
ind., i.e. in the pairs of forms discussed in sections 1 and 2 above. Con-
sequently we expect imp. sg. formations containing the vowel of the
(2p.) sg. pres. ind. instead of the inherited vowel of the imp., in the
cases when the two vowels are not identical. There are ca. eighty verbs
of this kind in the language, judging by the lists in Valtýr Guðmundsson
1922. But the only forms of the type that I have found are the imp. sg.
kýs(tu), beside the regular imp. sg. kjóstu, of kjósa ‘choose’ (cf. the 2p.
sg. pres. ind. kýs), and the imp. sg. veld, beside the regular imp. sg.
vald, of valda ‘cause’ (cf. the 2p. sg. pres. ind. veldur). The origin of
kýs(tu) and veld has never been discussed in print, as far as I know.
The oldest example of the imp. kýs(tu) that I know of — and the
only one that I have seen in print — occurs in the manuscript Ny kgl.
sml. 1141 fol., from the latter half of the eighteenth century. (For the
example see Jón Helgason 1962b:157 v. 1., for the dating of the manu-
script, which is a copy of a lost manuscript from 1699-1700, see Jón
Helgason 1962a:IX, XX.) My informant Miss Aldís Sigurðardóttir told
me in 1978, in the course of an investigation of the imp. sg. forms, that
she and the then Icelandic priest in Copenhagen, a Northern man, used
the imp. kýstu. Magnús Pétursson (per litteras 1981) is of the opinion
that the imp. kýstu is more common than the imp. kjóstu, in the modem
spoken language.
The imp. veld was fumished by Miss Aldís Sigurðardóttir in 1978 in
response to the question, “What is the imp. sg. of vaidaT' Magnús Pét-
ursson (per litteras 1981) states that the imp. veld is not used in the
spoken language. It is notorious that speakers have difficulties forming
the imp. sg. of valda ‘cause’.
4. There is also substantial formal and semantic/functional similarity
between the imp. sg. and the 2p. sg. pres. SUBJUNCTIVE. E.g. imp.
sg. gefðu of ‘gefa’ and the 2p. sg. pres. subj. gefir contain the same root.
On the basis of the very many such pairs, one expects rale (6), q.v., for
the formation of the imp. sg. Rule (6) can lead to a new result only in
(6) To form the imp. sg., take the root of the 2p. sg. pres. subj. (and
add affixed þú).
the verbs in which the forms of the pres. subj. contain a root different