Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 2020, Page 335

Myrvoll objects to my scansion of Arinbjarnarkviða (Arbj) 2.4 skrǫkberǫndum
as being svsx (of type D3). He advocates Sievers’ notation  |   x for this line.
This line stands out in my analysis. There is no other line like it in Arinbjarnar -
kviða, Sonatorrek or Ynglingatal (the main poems in kviðuháttr before AD 1000).
This makes the line dubious. Arbj 2.4 alone does not justify adding more features
to distinguish rhythmic types (like a secondary stress or word separations).
Myrvoll also objects to my scansion of Arbj 1.8 um þjóðlygi as vsvx and of
other lines of the C3 type. The problem that he sees is that the C3 lines do not
have two lifts. The two lifts are a feature of all Sievers types. The second lift is
produced from light syllables if heavy syllables are not available. I could also pro-
claim that sv has two lifts, side by side, but I do not see a need for it.
Alliteration in kviðuháttr and dróttkvætt is only on heavy syllables or their
equivalents (by cohesion or Verschleifung). This is undisputed, yet exceptions exist.
Two of them appear in Arinbjarnarkviða in: á hlið aðra and þótt fé eigi (Arbj 10.4
and 20.4), alliteration is bolded. My scansion for these lines can only be vvsx,
which is not to Myrvoll’s liking because it lacks lifts.
Odd lines of kviðuháttr poems have three positions instead of four and differ
in other ways as well from the even lines. It is common for them to have alliter-
ation on light syllables, but this is clearly a specific feature of these lines as dis-
cussed in the thesis. It is not fair of Myrvoll to compare the previous even lines
to the odd lines: hǫfuðlausn or vinar míns (Arbj 8.7 and 15.5); the alliteration is
bolded.
I believe my analysis of kviðuháttr and of Arinbjarnarkviða is restrictive, accu-
rate and consistent. This is contrary to what might be deduced from Myrvoll’s
comments. In my opinion he puts too much effort into defending the traditional
notational system. This takes the focus away from the results that were pro-
duced, such as on the location of restricted syllables and that either the penult or
antepenult are always strong, but not both.
Myrvoll’s first objection in the linguistic part of his discussion regards the
line Nú erumk auðskœf (stanza 15) where editors traditionally delete the word Nú.
I absolutely agree with Myrvoll that Nú should not be deleted and my notes
explain why. I should have made may preference clearer. However, I wished my
text to reveal the options open to an editor. It is a defendable position to trust
Snorra-Edda’s derived texts when they are available (the line is without Nú in
such a text), and this seems to be what previous editors have done. It is one of
my more interesting results that there are no occasions where the Snorra-Edda
texts are clearly superior.
Myrvoll’s second objection is on stanza 18 where I managed to provide a
good interpretation for the second half of the stanza but not the first. The entire
stanza appears to be without a finite verb and I did not see any candidate for a
verb except á ‘owns’ (reading of 169 as i or a). The stanza has a noun phrase,
Hróaldrs [?] hǫfuðbaðmi. The question mark stands for something in the NP.
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