Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Síða 108
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INTRODUCTION
‘heyuit’. Among pl. nd-stems in 169 we meet ‘sækendr’ 62r4 (but sg.
‘sækiandi’) and ‘flytenðr’ 55vl4. -ind is the suffix form in ‘erind(-)’,
‘sannind(-)’, Ticind(-)’.
2. The scribe writes acc. and dat. pl. m. of fátœkr both as ‘fatækia’
and ‘fatæka’, ‘fatgkium’ and ‘fatækum’; other words, e.g. útlægr, sekr,
are declined as ö-stems, as is the wa-stem snóggr. Adj. suffix -ligr is
always with (i). Superlatives are usually in (st), and ‘best’ appears
alongside ‘bezt(-)’ in 57, ‘helst’ in NRA 80; ‘þeckiligsti’ shows the
regular syncopated form in such a case. Usual forms are ‘siþarst(-)’
and ‘vtarst’ (adv.).
3. The f. sg. pronoun is ‘hon’; first person pl., on the rare occasions
it is written out, is ‘vær’. Nom. sg. m. and f. ‘þessi’ is more frequent
than ‘sia’; ‘þessor’ is found but only in the n. pl. Single (r) is written
in e.g. ‘þeiri’, ‘þeira(r)’ but the extended forms generally have (rr> in
‘þessarrar’, ‘þessarri’, ‘þessarra’. The article in 169 is in hin- and in-;
in the NRA fragments only en-iin- forms are found (except in the in-
terpolated Sæmundar þáttr; see VII below).
4. The neg. prefix is written (o> about twice as often as (u)/(v>. Neg.
adv. is eigi, most often abbreviated ‘e’’, sometimes ‘ég’ (which also
serves as an abbreviation for third sg. and pl. subj. of eiga). The collo-
cation ‘at vettugi hafa’ occurs in 169, 26vl2. Neg. pronoun and adj. is
nom. ‘engi’, with ong forms beside eng forms in oblique cases, ‘ongan’,
‘ongu’, ‘onga’, ‘ongu’; gen. sg. m. and n. is ‘eingis’, ‘engis’.
5. Dat. of tveir is ‘tveim’ but ofþrír ‘þrimr’. Adj. “twenty” is ‘tvitogr’.
6. Third person pl. of eiga is ‘eigu’, very rarely ‘eiga’, of mega
‘megu’, of þurfa both ‘þurfu’ and ‘þurfa’. Second pers. sg. of vilia is
‘vill’, third person often ‘vil’. Past part. of höggva is ‘hoggvi(t)’, 169
39vl5. The inf. and present and pret. forms of gera/gjöra are written
with ‘ger-’, but past part. forms are ‘gort’, ‘giort’, adjectival nom. sg.
m. ‘goR’, nom. sg. f. ‘gior’, acc. sg. f. ‘gcrva’, nom. pl. n. ‘gior’. The
comp. adv. is ‘gior’, ‘goR’; substantive both ‘gerd’ and ‘giord’.
7. In 169 and NRA 69 the middle voice ending is regularly (z), with
‘bersk’ noted once in 169, 69vl3. In NRA 80 there is only one instance
of (z> but five of (st>: 'dyrkast’, ‘vægiast’, ‘komast’, Teysist’, ‘kvast’.38
38 The several <st) forms in NRA 80 presumably depend on the usage of the exemplar
from which it was copied. Cf. IV 7 on initial <sk) spellings in NRA 80 as opposed to
the scribe’s normal preference for <sc). Prolific use of <st) endings is unusual, but