Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.10.2003, Blaðsíða 103

Linguistic and textual features
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3. MORPHOLOGY
Nominal forms The dative of Arnkell does not occur unabbreviated. The
distinction between -rr and -r in masc. nom. and acc. sing. is observed after
a long vowel or diphthong in the names Alfgeirr ‘salfgein-’/‘Alfgein-’ 17.1,
45, 49 (all nom.); Asgeirr ‘Asgeir/-’ 7.7 (nom., sole); ‘Finngeirr’ 7.3 (nom.,
sole); Þórr ‘Þorr’ 4.7 - 4.38 (x 4, all nom.), ‘Þór’ 4.1 (acc.); but after a
short vowel the spelling is less orthodox; for Styrr the spelling is always
‘Styrr’ 26.4, 20 (nom., all), 26.2, 6 (dat., all); the common noun styrr has
dative ‘styr’ in verse 17.105. The nominative of Már is ‘Maarr’ 25.52.
Correspondingly, the gen. sing. is ‘Mars’ 25.47. The female proper name
Þuríðr occurs as ‘Þurid’ 17.119 (nom., sole); Geirríðr does not occur
unabbreviated.
Adjectival forms For the superlative, (zt)/<ztt) is usual ‘hravstazti’ 17.23
- ‘ægietazta’ 26.16 (x 4), for /-mutated superlatives <st> ‘flesta’ 4.6 -
‘næst’ 26.1 (x 8), except where t is in the stem ‘bezti’ 17.65. <z> on its own
is used in ‘Raid ligaz’ 17.137.
The negating prefix is twice <o> ‘olifiss’ 17.79, ‘ohol’ 17.106 (verse, cf
Errors and unique readings), twice <v> ‘v þueginn’ 4.35, ‘vhelgi’ 25.47.
Verbal forms Change from classical verbal accidence is evidenced in ‘at
ek tali’ (first person pres. subj.) 26.7. Classical usage survives in ‘ef ek ...
nædag’ (first person past subj.) 17.133 (verse). The last letter of ‘ek
skylld[a]’ (or ‘skylldi’??) past subj. 17.44 is not clear, as is also the case
with the last letter of ‘at ek h[o]g[gua]’ (pres.? subj.) 17.199 (verse).
For the first sing. of vera, the third-person form ‘er ek’ is used 17.126.
There are examples of suffixed first sing. pronoun: ‘nædag’ 17.133,
‘siamk’ 17.231 (both in verse), but verb in first sing. + ek is usually written
as two words, as ‘nenni ek’ 17.47 (prose), ‘Varda ek’ 17.100 (verse),
‘baYk at ek’ 17.104 (verse), ‘mæli ek’ 17.106 (verse), ‘sa ek’ 17.151
(verse).
First person sing. medio-passive forms may have the classical <mk>
‘siamk’ 17.231, ‘ervmk’ 17.233 (both verse) (all), but also the modified
<mz> ‘þottumz ek’ 17.182 (verse) (sole). The usual spelling for other occur-
rences of the medio-passive exponent is <z> or <zt>/<ztt> ‘Riedvz’ 4.5 -
‘stadf[e]staztt’ 5.10 - ‘slæzt’ 17.48 - ‘Reidz’ 17.247 - ‘kuezt’ 25.28 -
‘gerdi]z’ 26.1 (x 38 in all). A single instance of <tz>, ‘slotz’ 26.2, also
occurs in W at the same point.
An analogical v appears in forms of verða before a rounded vowel
‘vordid’ 17.191, ‘vyrdi’ 25.30, ‘wrdv’ 25.48; similarly, ‘vöx’ 17.179
(verse, spoils the alliteration); the perfect participle of hggg(v)a appears
with retained v ‘-höggvin’ 17.60 (sole).