I thought I'd check how this looks on the web. Searching for the popular
modern phrase "halda kjafti" (to shut up) I get 190 Google hits for "halt
þú kjafti" and 0 Google hits for the prescriptively correct "hald þú
kjafti". There are also many Google hits from blogs and such for "komd þú"
while the hits for "kom þú" are mostly Biblical and such. The naked
imperative 'kom' is however commonly used in one phrase: "Kom inn!"

Kveðja,
Haukur

> Thanks for extra detail, Haukur! I hope I got the rest of
> pronunciation stuff more or less right...
>
> So, it's gone from 'hald' to 'halt' by the final devoicing rule (as in
> 'band' > 'batt', etc.), then back to 'hald' (in theory [
> http://www.lexis.hi.is/beygingarlysing/so/sb/halda.html ]) by analogy
> with forms where 'd' remained, then back to 'halt þú' by analogy with
> 'haltu'?
>
>> In practice I think most people would in fact say "Nei,
>> ég vil ekki halda vörð - halt þú vörð."
>
> You have to watch out you don't accidentally start off any major world
> religions with that sort of attitude :-)
>
>> "Nei, ég vil ekki fara' út í búð. Farð þú."
>
> Interesting... We met with a similar phenomenon in the last section
> of Njáls saga we looked at: the modern 2nd person indicative 'þú
> sérð', as opposed to the older 'þú sér'.
>
> LN
>
>
> --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Haukur Þorgeirsson <haukurth@...>
> wrote:
>>
>> > Also, the (simple / unsuffixed) regular imperative singular of 'halda'
>> > was 'halt' in Old Norse, although Modern Icelandic has replaced this
>> > with 'hald' by analogy with other parts of the conjugation.
>>
>> In theory maybe. In practice I think most people would in fact say "Nei,
>> ég vil ekki halda vörð - halt þú vörð." I use an example like this
> because
>> the unsuffixed singular imperative is almost exclusively used when a
>> strong emphasis is on the pronoun. The pronoun understandably
> doesn't like
>> to become a suffix when it's emphasized. Nevertheless the imperative
> form
>> is most familiar in the suffixed form so will tend to retain whatever
>> changes the suffix has wrought on it even when the pronoun reasserts
>> itself.
>>
>> Similarly one would say:
>>
>> "Nei, ég vil ekki fara' út í búð. Farð þú."
>>
>> "Nei, ég nenni' ekki' að koma til þín í kvöld. Komd (kond) þú til mín."
>>
>> (Well, *I* might say "far þú" and "kom þú" but I think that is probably
>> hyper-correct or bookish.)
>>
>> Kveðja,
>> Haukur
>
>