Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2013, Side 223

On Haukur Þorgeirsson’s doctoral dissertation
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tradition at work over a line of some few generations or over a time span of more
than 500 or even 1000 years? Datings do of course matter and might lend more
weight to the general argument offered by the author. To be fair, Haukur seems
to be aware of this problem (p. 239, my emphasis):
Hvers vegna leið stuðlun j við sérhljóða undir lok en stuðlunin uppgóm-
mæltra og framgómmæltra hljóða ekki? Við því á ég ekkert skýrt svar. Ef til
vill væri það líka til of míkils mælt að ætlast til að kenning geti spáð fyrir um
hvort samfellandi hefðarregla lifir í 500 ár eða 1000 ár.
From the present opponent’s view it is hard to believe that the factor of tradition
can upheld an alliterative practice over more than 500 or 1000 years unless
entrenched in the metrical and phonological system. The diachronic argument of
hefðarregla is slightly overburdened — an observation that is supported by the
lack of fine-tuned datings as well as the general reference to sound changes in
Proto-Nordic — after all a time span of more than 600 years if the syncope peri-
od is included (i.e. c. 150—700 A.D.). This chronological vagueness impinges on
the discussion of several phenomena such as secondary umlauts. On page 50 it is
stated that “svokallað g/k-hljóðvarp bendir til að framgómmælt önghljóð hafi
verið til í norður-germönsku þegar á frumnorrænu stigi.” While it is certainly
correct that allophonic variants of palatalized g/k existed already in Proto-
Nordic, the process of^/Zc-mutation itself is more likely to have occurred in the
early Viking Age, say around 700—850 A.D.12
Similar considerations apply to the syncopation laws, viz. the syncope of /i/
and /u/ in short stems such as *sunu > sun/son, or *sakiR > sekr. A glance at the
famous Rök-inscription from Ostergötland (OG 136) from the early 8oos dis-
plays unsyncopated forms such as sitiR (Olcel. sitr) and karuR (Olcel. ggrr).
Hence the succession of syncope as sketched by Boutkan (1995:36). This is not
meant to invalidate Haukur’s claims but rather to improve his argumentation
strategies and to show that the alleged time spans for a hefðarregla can be fairly
short. At Bragi’s times, syncope must have been roughly completed and other
evolutionary processes like umlaut were largely finished. It follows that we do
not need to consider larger periods of 500 or 1000 years to be bridged by a
hefðarregla. Besides, related matters were much discussed already at the end of
the l9th c. by the Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge (1894) and his Icelandic col-
league Finnur Jónsson (1895) to whom Haukur does not refer. To sum up,
chronology is able to support the general argument of tradition in several cases.
Given that unsyncopated forms like *sitiR, *saku were still met in the early
Viking Age, the notion of tradition and continuity is indeed apt to explain for
instance why /a/ and umlauted /9/ easily rhyme during Bragi’s lifetime and
12 On this chronological assessment see, e.g., Skomedal (1980:121) and Schulte
(1998:244).