Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Síða 174
154
Part One
ditions were seen as representing chronologically different linguistic
layers.
Since the finite verb in the sentence, as a result of a Germanic de-
velopment (1933: 65-68 = 1969: 69-71), might be a sentence particle,
the rule had important consequences for the placement of the verb in
the sentence. Kuhn here introduced an important distinction between
independent (“selbstandige”) and bound (“gebundene”) sentences,
which only partially coincided with the traditional distinction between
main and subordinate clauses, as not only subordinate clauses are
“bound”, but also every sentence combined with another by means of
co-ordinating conjunctions, pronouns etc. (1933: 50-51 = 1969: 57).
The verb in independent clauses might be unstressed and so take the
position of a sentence particle, whereas this was not possible for full
verbs in bound clauses, in which the verb tended to be placed doser
to the end of the sentence; cf. the word order in subordinate clauses in
modem German.
The general principle guiding the different developments was, ac-
cording to Kuhn, a fundamental change in the general stress pattem. In
the language of the oldest alliterative poetry each word had a definite
level of accentuation, determined by its phonetic volume, its syntactic
function and the part of speech to which it belonged, and this fixed ac-
cent determined to a great extent its position in the sentence. Later, word
stress became much more variable and was defined chiefly by its place
in the sentence. Accentuation now related to the sentence and not to the
word itself. Particularly the final part of a sentence or a clause had be-
come an important position, favouring the end rhyme verse found in Ot-
frid. Because the old alliterative art had its linguistic foundation in the
old stress pattem, however, the grammatical rules derived from the same
pattem remained in vigour in some alliterative poetry, particularly in
Iceland, and the different phases of the development may be traced
within Old Norse poetry.
From our point of view the most important aspect of Kuhn’s study is
his subdivision of Old Norse poetry according to its differing position
with respect to the mies detected by him, leading to rather unexpected
groupings. Although the subject is essentially one of linguistic history,
groupings according to genre and metre, representing chronological
strata, are more prominent in Kuhn’s treatment than considerations of
chronological developments within the groups. Skaldic poetry is most