The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1961, Blaðsíða 26

24
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Winter 196 i
Prim. Germ, e- a- ae-o.
5. Icel. e- a- a- e.
Prim. Germ, e- a- ae’ - e.
6. Icel. a- 6-6- a.
Prim. Germ, a- 6-6- a.
7. Icel. d-6-i.
Prim. Germ, ae- 6- ae’.
This among other things shows
most clearly how important a place
Icelandic occupies in the field of phil-
ology. The same, in varying degrees,
applies to other Old Germanic lan-
guages as for instance Gothic.
As already stated, the gradation
series appears most distinctly in the
principal parts of strong verbs, but
merely the mention of “principal parts’’
leads one on to an important aspect,
which is their productiveness. Here
one will find the origin of a consider-
able proportion of the Icelandic vo-
cabulary and the same applies to lan-
guages closely related to Icelandic. A
few examples will be given. The first
gradation series (see the above table)
appears in the principal parts of bita
(to bite), beit (bit), bitum (we bit),
bitiS (have bitten). The nouns bit (a
bite), bid (a bit), beita (to graze, feed
sheep and cattle) are all derived from
the above-mentioned principal parts.
From lxta, which belongs to the same
group as bxta, are derived leita (to
search, seek, originally “to seek with
one’s eyes), leit (a search), leiti (hill)
etc. In fljuga (to fly) we have the sec-
ond class of the gradation series, i. e.
fljuga (to fly), flaug (flew), flugum (we
flew, flogiS (have flown). From these
principal parts are derived fleygja (to
throw, originally “to cause something
to fly”), flaug (a vane), fleygur (a
wedge), and the adj. fleygur (able to
fly, fluent), flug (flight), fluga (a fly),
flog (a flying, flight, also a medical
term). From the principal parts of
sjoSa (to boil) which belongs to the
same class as fljuga are derived seySi
(broth),soS (broth), sauSur (a wether,
the original implication was that the
fate of the animal was to be cooked in
boiling water), suSa (to purl), su5 (the
purling sound of running or boiling
water). The fourth gradation series ap-
pears in bera (to bear, carry), the prin-
cipal parts of which are bera, bar (bore,
carried), barum (we bore, carried), bor-
i3 (have born(e), carried). The follow-
ing words are derived from these: barn
(child), baera (to move, stir), byrSi (bur-
den), Old Icel. burr (son), and many
others. The fifth gradation series ap-
pears in gefa (to give), gaf (gave), gafum
(we gave), from which are derived gjof
(present, gift,), gaefa (luck), gafa (a gift
in a spiritual sense), gifta (luck), gifta
(to give a woman in marriage), gifting
(marriage), etc. The sixth series ap-
pears in fara (to go), for, forum (went),
farifS (gone). From these are derived
far (track, passage), for (journey),
faera (to bring), etc.
ICELANDIC SYNTAX
Space permits me barely to touch
upon the syntax of Icelandic. If I were
to define some of the values it may
have for students of languages I should
first mention the historic-philological
value, as the structure of the sentence
in Icelandic has all the characteristics
of the ancient Indo-European lan-
guages.. Secondly, I would like to men-
tion something which could be called
“the disciplinary value”. In the study
of highly inflected languages, where
each word of the sentence may have
to agree with the next one in case,
gender and numbber, the student is
provided with the finest type of men-
tal gymnastics.
Teachers at higher institutions of
learning would no doubt agree that