Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 2020, Qupperneq 121

summary
‘Degemination of final consonants in late Old Icelandic’
Keywords: degemination, Old Icelandic, morphology, phonology, poetry as linguistic evidence
Old Icelandic had an inflectional system in which certain morphological categories were
marked with long consonants (rr, ss, nn, ll) in final position. This system was intact ca.
1300 but was heavily modified in the 14th and 15th centuries. The present study traces the
changes involved more closely than previously attempted, both with regards to the timing
and causality of the shifts.
Some 14th century manuscripts show long consonants in forms like sjórr (‘sea’, nom.
sg.). I explain this innovation as an analogical change facilitated by the rise of the epenthet-
ic vowel u ca. 1300. When forms like hest-r (‘horse’, nom. sg.) turned into hest-ur the per-
ception of final r as a marker of the nominative was weakened. When the old form sjó-r
(‘sea’, nom. sg.) lost this support, the timing was opportune to assimilate it to the pattern
of words like Þórr (‘Thor’, nom. sg.), where a long consonant marked the nominative.
Similar considerations apply to innovations like nýrr (‘new’, nom. sg. masc.) and deyrr
(‘dies’).
When this analogical change is accounted for, it turns out that the old system of long
consonants was still intact, in stressed syllables, near the end of the 14th century as shown
by the orthography of Flateyjarbók and rhyme in early rímur poetry. But then there was a
relatively quick collapse with innovations like hvárr > hvár (‘who of two’, nom. sg. masc.)
and hverr > hver (‘who of many’, nom. sg. masc.) dominant by the mid-15th century. This
change appears to have phonological aspects since it proceeded more quickly after a long
vowel and also occurred in words like fyrr (‘before’) where the long consonant had no mor-
phological function.
Shortening of long consonants also occurred after s in forms like yss (‘tumult’, nom.
sg.), fúss (‘willing’, nom. sg. masc.), kýss (‘chooses’) and mýss (‘mice’). Since there are rela-
tively few words involved, this change is more difficult to trace but appears to have pro-
ceeded more or less alongside the change in words with final rr. It could be seen as a sort
of morphological clean-up operation, i.e. a consequence of the loss of final rr as a morpho-
logical marker. But one indication that it may have a phonological aspect is that it also took
place, for some speakers, in genitive forms like húss (‘of house’).
Finally, forms ending in nn and ll have largely survived into Modern Icelandic, per-
haps protected in some way by the intrusive [t] in words like þjónn (‘servant’, nom. sg.) and
vill (‘wants’). But both spelling and rhyme show that monoconsonantal forms like þjón and
vil did occur in the language of some 15th and 16th century speakers.
Haukur Þorgeirsson
Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum
Árnagarði við Suðurgötu
IS-102 Reykjavík
ICELAND
haukur.thorgeirsson@arnastofnun.is
Stytting langra samhljóða í bakstöðu 121