Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.10.2003, Blaðsíða 119

Linguistic and textual features
101*
Abbreviated words (one example of each): ‘e*’: ‘eigi’ 51.10; ‘e1-’: ‘er’
51.3; ‘F: ‘fara’ 51.41; ‘f1’: ‘firir' 51.22; ‘h’: ‘han' 51.6; ‘h1’: ‘het' 51.1;
‘mz’: ‘mannz' 52.47; ‘m’: ‘menn' 51.39; ‘mm’: ‘maunnum' 51.61; ‘mz’:
‘med' 51.36; ‘mu’: ‘munu' 51.50; ‘t1’: ‘til’ 51.62; ‘u", ‘v1’: ‘uid’, ‘\id’ 50.3,
51.3; ‘þ’: ‘þaí’ 51.60, ‘þ’: ‘Þo/'dis’ 53.4; other common words are
abbreviated by the contraction bar: ‘hans’, ‘þe/m’, ‘þc/r’, ‘þc/ra’, ‘þc/ri’,
‘þessa’, ‘þc^sir’.
Abbreviations occur more frequently near the end of a line. Many of the
above occur once or twice only.
2. ORTHOGRAPHY
Vowels There are no distinctive spellings for unmutated long vowels other
than OI á and é as noted below. The use of (aa) (x 11), (æ> (twice), (æ) (x
6) and (æ) (x 4) is restricted to the word á (preposition and noun) except
for ‘aama’ 52.15. á in Froðá may also be spelt with (unaccented, single)
<a>.
Otherwise OI á may be expressed by <á) ‘Kárr’ 50.2, ‘Kár’ 50.3, ‘á'didit’
51.41, ‘átt’ 51.44, ‘Már’ 52.19, ‘Mána’ 52.29, ‘grái’ 53.12, ‘uár’ 53.12, as
well as by <a>.
OI é is <ie> only in the pronoun ‘þier’ 51.47, 54 (ct ‘þer’ 51.47, ‘ser’
51.53). vér is once spelt ‘uér’ 51.39.
OI æ, front mutation of á, and OI œ, front mutation of ó, had clearly
fallen together. For this vowel <é> is more frequent (x 46) than <æ> (x 11).
In the stretch from ‘atkuædun/’ 51.24 to the end, <æ> is used only twice,
whereas <é> is used 42 times.
Similarly to Hand ii <au> is a more frequent (x 50) representation for OI
q, labially mutated a, than <ð> (x 18); <o> occurs twice with this value. <au)
is used for OI 0 in ‘auruént’ 51.48, ‘aungri’ 51.48.
Two inverse spellings for au are found, in ‘þö’ 51.59 and ‘kósi’ 53.9 (cí
‘kausi’ 52.32). For OI jg, labially mutated fractured e, <iö> is always used
‘miðk’ 51.8 - ‘Biörn’ 51.66 (x 6).
Specific vowel combinations vá appears only as <uo>, in ‘suo’ 51.7 -
52.43 (x 5) and ‘uorra’ 51.44 (all).
segja appears as ‘segia’ 51.45, 56, without <ei> forms.
eng is regularly <eing>, as ‘leingi’ 50.3 - ‘geingu’ 51.38 -‘ei/zgi’ 51.67
(x 5) (but ‘engan’ 51.13).
y + consonant(s) + /: fyrir ‘firir’ 51.22, ‘firir' 51.25, 66 (all); ‘yfir’ 51.48,
no example of ‘ifir’; þykkja: ‘þiki’ (pres. subj.) 51.41, ‘þickia’ 51.43,
‘þickiz’ 51.59 (all).
Vowels in unstressed syllables As with Hand ii <i> (x ca 240) is usual for
the front unrounded vowel finally, and also before final r (x 48), but <e>