Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2013, Page 215

MICHAEL SCHULTE
On Haukur Þorgeirsson’s doctoral dissertation
Haukur Þorgeirsson has delivered an appealing case study on the interface
between phonology and poetry in Old and Middle Icelandic. The dissertation is
written in Icelandic, with an English summary: “How poetic is phonology?
Studies in Old and Middle Icelandic poetry” (pp. 355—75). The work raises a
range of interesting diachronic issues, not least regarding tonemes and epenthet-
ic vowels as well as the historical development of the medio-passive in Icelandic
and West Scandinavian. Haukur takes explicit note of a range of possible
explanatory factors, including the notion of deep structure, structural arguments
centered on the phoneme, orthography, i.e. the supportive force of spelling tra-
ditions, phonetic similarity, and not least tradition more broadly (see §10, pp.
233—42). The author’s stance toward generative and structural arguments in
terms of “deep structure” and “complementary distribution” is basically negative
— a stance which echoes more recent generative developments after the revi-
sion(s) of the Standard Theory in phonology. Haukur exemplifies that the metre
of Icelandic poetry can be analyzed solely in terms of surface features without
recourse to deep structure.
1. General assessment
Haukur’s basic aim is to re-assess the relationship between phonology and poet-
ry on the basis of Old Icelandic and Middle Icelandic data, in particular the rímur
of Ormarr Fraðmarsson (the Kollsbók version) which are datable to the mid-i5th
century. Before the author sets out to evaluate Ormars rímur as a direct source for
the poetic and linguistic system of the 15* century, he clears his way with textu-
al criticism and the assessment of variant readings (variae lectiones) at some length
(see pp. 303ff.). Haukur’s method of textual criticism is laudably cautious and he
offers a convincing restitution of Ormars rímur. There is a general awareness in
this work that the spelling evidence of poetry for language history is by no means
straightforward, and that a cautious and indirect approach to the spelling evi-
dence of skaldic verse and medieval rímur is called for. Also, paleographic and
graphemic factors such as the shape of ligatures and the height of particular let-
ters to be combined e.g. with r-rotunda receive due attention in the statistical
assessment of epenthetic vowels.
On the whole, the dissertation contributes to a number of research areas of
Old and Middle Icelandic, both diachronic and synchronic. These can be sum-