Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1970, Page 127

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And the answer given is (ibid.):
‘(i) In the statement of a sound shift, the environment z,
like the source x, must be a sound or a finite combination of
sounds of the parent language. (2) There is a mechanism of
change, . . . , not to be confused with and not reducible to
analogy or borrowing; its effects are not necessarily reflected
in every sound shift that has been reliably discovered and
reported, but without it there would be no discernible
UNDERLYING REGULARITY IN LINGUISTIC CHANGE AND THE COM-
PARATIVE METHOD WOULD YIELD NO RESULTS’ (emphasized
here).
A lucid illustration of the separate identity of phonemic
and morphophonemic changes is provided by the development
of the Icelandic vocalism sketched in § 4.4. Through the suc-
cessive vocalic mergers the number of units in the phoneme
inventory was gradually greatly reduced; from thirty units
(including the three diphthongs, ei, ey, au, as well as short g)
in the earliest period it was reduced to thirteen (eight mon-
ophthongs, and five diphthongs, eí, aí, öí, oú, aú). In spite of
this, the morphophonemic alternations in which the vowels
took part were for the most part preserved remarkably well.
True, in some cases such an alternation has disappeared, as
in sing. ráð ‘counsel’, plur. ráð, with the same vowel (instead
of earlier sing. ráþ, plur. rgþ) as opposed to sing. land ‘land’,
plur. lönd (Olcel. land, Ignd). But such cases are exceptional.
As a rule, a morphophonemic alternation between two vowels
is preserved even though one or both were involved in a
phonemic merger, cf., e.g., sing. land, plur. lönd, or inf. láta
‘to let’, 3rd sing. lætur. Further, there are cases in which a
new alternation has appeared to replace an earlier one that
was abolished through a phonemic merger, e.g. pos. þröngur
‘narrow’, comp. þrengri (Olcel. þrgngr, þrengre), or inf. höggva
‘to hew’, 3rd sing. heggur (Olcel. hgggva, heggr); cf. also the
alternation u~y that is preserved as an alternation u~i (§1.2).
And finally, there are even cases of vowel alternation where
there was none before, e.g. pos. glöggur ‘clear’, comp. gleggri