Studia Islandica - 01.06.1949, Page 32

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curs: the p,t,k, and it has succumbed to the assimilatory forces
of its surroundings.
Another striking example would be the development of the
noninitial Germanic g in Icelandic. This is thought to have been
a voiced spirant, but nowhere did it have a contrasting voiceless
spirant as an opposite phonem. It was thus laid open to assimila-
tory (and dissimilatory) tendencies to such an extent that it is
now represented by five different sounds.
If a lack of a contrasting element thus undoubtedly favors
change, does the presence of one always prevent one?
The answer is no. It is true that contrasting elements resist
a convergent change of the elements. But they do not resist, they
seem even to favor, a divergent development of the elements;
this emphasizes the contrast. Thus the pattern to be sure is main-
tained, but one or both of the elements may change even so as
to lose all similarity with the other and be considered a wholly
new sound or phonem.
This has happened in case of many of the long (double) conso-
nants in Icelandic. They have in many instances changed where
the short ones remained unchanged:
p :pp > hpp; t :tt > htt; k :kk > hkk; l :ll > dl; n : nn > dn
(nn only after O. Icel. long vowel).
No such change has taken place with n:nn (after O. Icel. short
vowel), m:mm, and r:rr. Yet there is no confusion of these pairs,
except in a comparatively few instances of r:rr.
Even more than the consonants the long and short vowels have
formed contrasting elements in a pattern with a diverging deve-
lopment. Here, again, the long vowels have mostly changed more
than the corresponding short ones, — exactly as they did in the
Great English Vowel Shift.
In the 14th and 15th centuries the low and mid long vowels
all developed into diphthongs (é,*) œ, á, ó > ie, ai, au, ou), while
the short i and u were lowered to distinguish them from the long
high í and ú.
In the 15th and 16th centuries there was a levelling of all syl-
lables under one length type (an analogical change, where the
most common type won out). At the same time new regulations
of length came into practice: regardless of original length vowels
were now long, if followed by one consonant (or none), short,
if followed by two or more consonants (with the exception of
p,t,k,s + r,j, v).
Again conditions allowed a divergent development of the new
long and short vowels, and by the 19th century these begin to
be noticeable.
The old short vowels i (y), e, o, ö, u tend to be dipththongized
when long. Their first part tends to become tense and close, their
*) We can be fairly certain that é would have become ei, if
that development had not been hindered by an already existed ei
in the vowel system.