Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2013, Page 220

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Michael Schulte
4. The impact of tradition and orthography
What Haukur labels hefdarskýrmg is most central to his argument: the force of
tradition at work. The author differentiates between two main types of traditions,
a merging tradition — samfellandi hefðarregla, and a splitting tradition - sundur-
greinandi hefðarregla (see §10.5, pp. 238-242). While splitting traditions seem to
be rare, merging traditions are a well-known phenomenon that receives due atten-
tion in historical linguistics. A remark on earlier structural works in historical
phonology would probably have been in place to show the relevance of this di-
chotomy based on merger and split. More specifically, Haukur’s categorization of
“viðmiðunarregla 1-3” (as summarized on p. 242) would have gained from a ref-
erence to Herbert Penzl’s methodological works on the evidence of spelling for
historical phonology, in particular phonemic merger and split (see, e.g., Penzl 1957
and Penzl 1982). It is noteworthy that Penzl’s works focus on various kinds of
spelling evidence and that they are not basically concerned with poetry.
Haukur identifies several merging traditions, particularly the full internal
rhyme of /a/ and /9/, alliteration between the semi-vowel j and vowels, and the
metrical equivalence of velar /k/ and palatal /c/ in alliterative practice. A partic-
ularly strong argument of this kind is the issue of tonemes (e.g., p. 219, on which
see 3. above). However, one might generally object that tradition alone is too
weak a factor to support a metrical practice unless entrenched within the metri-
cal and phonological system otherwise, for example by phonetic resemblance.
Not least the periodization and dating of sound changes is of crucial importance
here (see 6. below). A case in point is the “late «-umlaut” of /a/ in short stems,
e.g. PrN *saku > Olcel. spk, and the «-umlaut with preserved /u/, e.g. *allum lan-
dum > gllum Igndum, on which see 6. below.
Haukur asserts that the force of tradition is supported by a firm and conser-
vative orthography. Taking our firm stand in modern alphabet culture this seems
safe and sound. The author refers to John J. Ohala (1994) and another central ref-
erence would be Gary Miller’s Ancient Script and Phonological Knowledge from
1994 (cf. p. 68). Both authors stress the relevance of phonemic writing principles
in ancient scripts. Script is thus seen as a supportive analytical tool to cope with
the phonology of a language. The author repeatedly invokes the supportive force
of “written tradition”, including spelling traditions bridging the large gap of dif-
ferent periods between, say, Proto-Nordic and Old Icelandic (see §10.3, pp.
236-237). This argument is used among other things to account for i)-allitcration
where phonetically [5], [n], [r], [1], [y] and [h] are (or may be) involved. As Haukur
generally states (p. 236, my emphasis):
Stafsetningin er eins konar greining á hljóðkerfi málsins og margt bendir til
að hún hafi áhrif á málvitund þeirra sem læra hana. Ekki kemur þá á óvart
að hennar sjái merki i kveðskap.