Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2013, Side 218

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Michael Schulte
3. Tonal distinctions in Old and Middle Icelandic?
Chapter 9 addresses the crucial issue of tonemes in Old Icelandic (pp. 213—232).
In a historical perspective of Scandinavian tone accent, disyllabic words received
a phrase final contour different from monosyllabic ones; this distinction was lex-
icalized in principal as bitonal Accent II (= toneme II) in contradistinction to
Accent I in monosyllabic words. New disyllabic forms with Accent I pattern (=
toneme I) came into being by means of two processes:
1. vowel epenthesis in originally monosyllables, e.g. ON akr ‘field’ >
Middle Scand. áker, New Norw. /knker/, ON fugl ‘bird’ > Middle
Scand. fágel, ON sókn ‘parish’ > Middle Scand. sokken, New Norw.
/’suken/ el. /‘sukn/, ON vatn ‘water’ > Middle Scand. vatten, and
2. the cliticisation/suffixation of the definite article, e.g. nót-in ‘the net’
(cf. pp. 213-215)9
Haukur’s account is straightforward and informative, although a particular group
of evidence is missing in chapter 9.2: the vast group of Scandinavian toponyms
(both place names and surnames) with original dative-locative endings receiving
toneme 2, e.g. Western Norwegian Matne (dative of ON vatn n. ‘water’) and
Southern Norw. 2Ose (dative of ON óss m. ‘mouth of a river’). One might further
ask whether this survey should have included a remark on the general relation
between Norwegian-Swedish tonemes and Danish st0cl as well as the distribution
of st0d. Apart from Tomas Riad (who is well represented in the bibliography) it
would have been useful to mention some of the works of the Danish linguist
Jprgen Rischel (e.g. Rischel 2009) who comes up with a comprehensive theory
of Nordic /’-umlaut, syncope and st0d (cf. also Basbpll 2008). But this is certain-
ly not mandatory in the Icelandic context.
As mainstream research would have it, tonal distinctions similar to those
found in Mainland Scandinavian (Norwegian and Swedish) were absent in Old
Icelandic and Faroese; see the short standard account in Kristján Arnason
(2011:366—367). Haukur refers to Ari Páll Kristinsson (1987) and Einar Sigmars-
son (2000), among others, both of whom are critical of the tonal theory. The
author highlights Jón Helgason’s approach from 1926 suggesting that Icelandic
had a tonal distinction between old disyllables ifmóðir, %móður) and new ones
(e.g. xmóður < móðr adj.).2 Haukur’s work corroborates the claim recently made
by Johan Myrvoll and Trygve Skomedal (2010) that tonal oppositions were pre-
sent in Old Icelandic (pp. 217—219). The argument is appealing and there is at
least the possibility that we are to expect tonemes at earlier stages of Icelandic.
Of particular importance is the TGT, or Þriðja málfróiðiritgerðin, written by Óla-
9 As mentioned by Haukur, relevant examples are found in Kjartan G. Ottósson’s
article from 1986.