Re[2]: [tied] Final -r in Old Norse.

At 5:16:43 PM on Saturday, May 22, 2004, Piotr Gasiorowski
wrote:

> 22-05-2004 22:47, Brian M. Scott wrote:

>> ['A:lvr], I believe, for the personal name; the 'elf' word
>> has a short vowel.

> The common noun was also <álfr> (in "standard" Old
> Icelandic orthography), with secondary length. This OIc.
> lengthening before /l/ plus a labial was regular (as in
> <álpt> [a:lft] 'swan', <álmr> 'elm', <kálfr> 'calf',
> <sjálfr> 'self' etc.).

And with /o/ and /u/, no? As in <úlfr>? But as I recall,
that lengthening is fairly late -- early 13th c. or so --
and I was thinking of the earlier situation. The name, on
the other hand, seems generally to be assigned to *AþawulfaR
and so would already have had a long vowel.

Brian