Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Qupperneq 212
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INTRODU CTION
(iv) Article and demonstratives. The article is always in h-. Nom.
sg. m. ‘þessor’ occurs once at 218/45.37 Dat. sg. n. því is written ‘þij’
and ‘þi’.
(v) Verhs. Of the verb forms játa, játta only the latter is used. Occa-
sional spellings are ‘man’ 223/52, ‘þer manid’ 223/43, ‘manu’ 209/32,
alongside usual forms in ‘mun(-)’. The second pers. sg. of vilja is ‘uil’
235/65:6. Both ‘gior-’ and ‘ger-’ forms are found in the pres. of
gjöra/gera. Pret. of síga is ‘seigh’ 223/64, of hníga ‘hne’ 224/69, of
róa ‘rére’ 238/78:1. Both older ‘trum uer’ and later ‘uer truum’ occur,
226/48, 223/42 (cf. e.g. dat. pl. ‘faam’ 231/39:3). Numerous third pers.
verb forms are found with ek: ‘gerir ek’, ‘bydr ek’, ‘ek hefir’, ‘hefuir
ek’, ‘uentir ek’, ‘gefur ek’, ‘heyrdi ek’; but older endings remain in in-
dic. ‘pttlada ek’, ‘ek hugda’, and in subj. forms: ‘ef ek dga’ 222/26, ‘at
uer leggim’ 225/24-25, ‘at þeir skyli’ 220/64. Past part. of hjálpa is
‘hialpad’ 223/51, of kjósa (as adj.) ‘kosinn’ 227/23:11. The middle
voice ending is regularly <z>, with old endings retained in ‘ek þott-
umz’, ‘ek þickiumz’, 222/27, 223/52, but <zst> in ‘andadizst’ 224/83,
<st> in ‘barst’ 229/31:1.
(vi) Adverbs. The scribe always writes ‘ual’ (and compounded in
‘ualgerningum’ 240/8) and ‘alldri’; usually ‘brott(u)’ but ‘braut’ at
237/76:5; ‘snimma’, ‘hingat’, ‘þangad’.
(vii) Prepositions. Prep. ór is always in <o>. Preps. með and við are
normally abbreviated, the latter as ‘u1’ but also written out as ‘uit’. At
the end of the text ‘medr’ and ‘uidr’ occur, 239/32, 240/25. “Between”
and “among” are ‘aa milli’ and ‘millum’, e.g. 217/32, 219/57.
10. Hand 5: Script. This hand writes Játvarðar saga, 68vb32-71r.38
The script begins in neat well-spaced fashion, but from about the mid-
dle of the next column, fol. 69ra, the scribe packs letters and words
tighter and generally affects a more vertically linear script. There is
greater use of abbreviation as the text proceeds, and the writing varies
in regularity - sometimes it matches the opening lines, at others one
might think a different hand had intervened, though generally there is
nothing in the orthography to confirm such a suspicion. An exception
37 It qualifies ymni, normally m., but the demonstrative apparently led Fritzner to de-
fine the noun in this instance as f. On nom. sg. m. þessor see Jón Þorkelsson, At-
hugasemdir, 14-15.
38 There are slight signs of early modern furbishing in 69va29, 69vbl 1.