Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1970, Page 468

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Some of the verbs listed above may be heard with a dif-
ferent quantity in the past participle than the one indicated.
In such forms as [blot] from [bloiða] ‘bleed’ and [usgat]
‘unhurt’ (cp. [sgæ:ða] ‘hurt’) both pronunciations with long
and with short vowel seem quite normal.
Vowel shortening can be observed also by a comparison of
some verbs with derived nouns or verbs, cp. ride~ridt, skride~
skridt, svide~svitse (cp. also bide~bidsel, fede~f0dsel, ode~edsel
with short vowel and loss of [ð] in the derived nouns and
adjectives).
If we turn now to adjectives in (alternatively) long vowel
plus [ð], three different types of behaviour with added -t
can be seen:
(1) Some adjectives have no modification, cp. [le:’ð]
‘repulsive’—[le:’ðt] (or [leð’t] according to an optional
modification common to all combinations of phonetically
long vowel plus voiced fricative). It is difficult to exemplify
these, since there is a tendency to avoid inflection of such
adjectives (a word like ked (af) ‘sorry’ is probably never
used with -t); possible examples are fad, lad (pejorative words
like led), kad, and foreign words, gravid, invalid, perfid, stupid.
(2) A few adjectives are often or generally pronounced with
a long vowel but loss of [ð] in the neuter: [sbro:’ð] ‘crisp’—
[sbro:’t] (like spred, possibly, also spœd, vid).
(3) Most of the common adjectives have both a short vowel
and loss of [ð] in the neuter: [brs:’ð] ‘broad’—[brst] (similarly
blid, bled, ded, fed, fiad, god, hvid, red, solid, strid, sod, vred,
vad).
4. Voiced Fricative Alternating with Voiceless Fricative
There are a few instances of alternation [v] ~ [f] in verbs
and adjectives, the latter alternant occurring in connexion
with the suffix -t; these forms have a short vowel: [sdi:’v] (or
[sdiu’], see below) ‘stiff’—neut. [sdift] (similarly, though with
a short vowel throughout: [grou’] ‘rough’— neut. [groft]),
[hæ:va] (or more frequently [hæ:’]) ‘have’—past part. [haft].