Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1970, Page 112

I IO
expected to have changed their quality so as to become inter-
mediate between the long vowels; or in other words, short i
and e were lowered. This diíFerentiation gradually affected
the whole system, supplementing the diíFerence oF quantity
in each pair oF vowels, short and long, by a difFerence oF
quality, and gradually resulting in a new distinctive Feature
structure oF the short subsystem. In the high and mid vowels,
at any rate, this diíFerentiation maniFested itselF primarily as
a lowering oF the short vowels. In the above diagram this
lowering is represented by the arrows as well as by the relative
position oF the vowel symbols; it is solidly coníirmed by the
short- and long-vowel equivalents in Modern Icelandic (ibid.
15-16).
The eíFect oFthis change oF the short vowels on the structural
interrelationships oF the Four vocalic subsystems was twoFold:
(1) The unstressed vowels [1] and [u], instead oF being
identified with stressed short e and 0, shiFted their identifica-
tion to stressed short i and u, respectively. As short i and u
were lowered, they tended in vowel timbre towards é and ó
and also, accordingly, towards [1] and [u], while, at the same
time, short e and 0, in consequence oF their lowering, gradually
diverged more and more From these. The result was that [1]
and [u] shifted in identification From e and 0 to i and u; in
the course oF the late twelFth and early thirteenth centuries,
their spelling changes gradually From ‘e’ and ‘o’ to ‘i’ and ‘u’,
and their Modern Icelandic equivalents are identified un-
ambiguously with the equivalents oF old stressed short i and u.
Hence we may say that the shiFt in identification oF [1] and [u]
From e and 0 to i and u was due, not to a change (raising)
oF [1] and [u], but to a lowering oF i and u (and oF e and 0).
In Fact, as Far as [1] is concerned, there is every reason to
believe that phonetically it has remained practically unchanged
From Old to Modern Icelandic, where it is a mid (or high-
mid) Front unrounded vowel; and the same is no doubt true
oF [u], except For its probably relatively late Fronting to the
present-day mid (orhigh-mid) Front rounded [y] (ibid. 14-18).