Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 13.07.1981, Blaðsíða 227

On Some lcelandic Irregular Imperative Forms 217
from the root in the imp. sg. (In all other verbs rule (6) supports the
inherited imp. sg.) There is only one such verb in Icelandic, viz. vera
‘be’, whose pres. subj. is sé, sért (old form sér), sé, etc. The expected
innovation is the imp. sé(ðu). I know this form only from pre-Reforma-
tion Icelandic. My oldest examples are from the manuscript AM 623 4°
(written probably about or not long after the middle of the thirteenth
century, seeHreinn Benediktsson 1965:xxxvii): lofaþr se þv (ed. Finnur
Jónsson 1927:93, 2713). I have culled my most recent examples from the
Reykjahólabók (written in the former half of the sixteenth century, see
the introduction in ed. Loth 1969): lofaþr sie þv and Heill sie þv (ed.
Loth 1969:15116, 30624). — The Old Norwegian Book of Homilies con-
tains two instances of the imp. se þu, see Holtsmark 1955, column 704,
where both instances are classified as 2p. sg. pres. subj. forms.
That the effects of rule (6) appeared earlier than the effects of rules
(4) and (5), is understandable: the similarity between the imp. sg. and
the 2p. sg. pres. subj. is especially close, both in terms of the number of
verbs involved in the formulation of rule (6) (all the verbs that possess
an imp. sg. are involved) and in terms of the semantic/functional af-
finity between the imp. sg. and the 2p. sg. pres. subj.
The imp. sé(ðu) disappeared relatively early because it had to com-
pete with the subj. form sér(t), whose range of usage included the range
of usage of sé(ðu).
REFERENCES
Björn Karel Þórólfsson. 1925. Um íslenskar orðmyndir á 14. og 15. öld og breyt-
ingar þeirra úr fornmálinu. Fjelagsprentsmiðjan, Reykjavík.
Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1927. AM 623, 4°. Helgensagaer. Samfund til udgivelse af
gammel nordisk litteratur, K0benhavn.
Holtsmark, Anne, ed. 1955. Ordforrádet i de eldste norske handskrifter til ca.
1250. Jacob Dybwad, Oslo.
Hreinn Benediktsson. 1965. Early Icelandic Script. The Manuscript Institute of
Iceland, Reykjavík.
Jón Friðjónsson. 1978. A Course in Modern Icelandic. Tímaritið Skák, Reykjavík.
Jón Helgason, ed. 1962a. íslenzk fornkvœði. Vol. I. Editiones arnamagnæanæ,
series B, vol. 10. Ejnar Munksgaard, K0benhavn.
Jón Helgason, ed. 1962b. íslenzk fornkvœði. Vol. III. Editiones arnamagnæanæ,
series B, vol. 12. Ejnar Munksgaard, K0benhavn.
lón Helgason, ed. 1970. íslenzk fornkvæði. Vol. VII. Editiones arnamagnæanæ,
series B, vol. 16. Munksgaard, K0benhavn.