I think i may get meself a copy o' that book 'cause it looks pretty interesting, if you could send those comments to me it'd be much appreciated. Thanks a lot.
--
Mar sin leibh, an-drasta
~Aodh MacUisdean
> Thanks all! I finally found the right place for these questions, it seems.
>
> Everything you wrote was relevant, and it will take me a while to digest
> things. But let me answer on a few points:
>
> Yes, the book is from 1994. It's a fairly modern liguistic treatment
> of Old English and related matters. The book is intended to help students
> move from primers to the "standard" works on Old English like Campbell's
> grammar, and to the larger Germanic picture. Overall, it does a good
> job. I'm a linguist (but no specialist in Germanic), so it helps me to
> see the connections, instead of just being given the paradigms to learn.
>
> /e/ and /i/--yes, Gordon (9) mentions forms like <skipeno> for <skipinu>.
> By the way, what does the First Grammatical Treatise show for such vowels?
>
> I have seen systems for learning old languages where an "underlying"
> form is given, along with a set of rules to apply. The output is more
> or less the attested forms. I thought maybe that what was Lass was doing.
> E.g. dative singular of a-stems is /e/, i-umlaut does not apply, later
> rule changes final unstressed /e/ to /i/, and you have dat. sing. <harmi>.
> Mostly this repeats the historical development. I suppose for consonant-
> stems the "underlying" dat. sing. is /i/, but the i-umlaut rule does
> not apply if the stem ends in more than one consonant, so /foeti/ but
> /nagli/.
>
> By the way, Gordon is good but very "compressed." What other words are
> there in Old Icelandic like /foeti/?
>
> I understand that for a-stem dat. sg. /degi/ the change is due to the
> palatal consonant +/i/ (Gordon 38). What other nouns could be given as
> examples of this change?
>
> >> N sun-r for son-r
> >> G son-ar
> >> D syn-e for syn-i
> >> A sun for son
> >> pl.
> >> N syn-er for syn-ir
> >> G son-a
> >> D sun-um
> >> A sun-o for sun-u
> >
> >He seems to be going for the most archaic forms. You notice he only
> >uses the a-mutated forms where there is an /a/ in the ending. This
> >is rather theoretical and hardly well attested in the mss.
>
> Thanks! It's clear now that you point it out.
>
> >> 1 b�r-a
> >> 2 b�r-er
> >> 3 b�r-e
> >> pl
> >> 1 b�r-em
> >> 2 b�r-e�
> >> 3 b�r-e
> >
> >This is subjunctive past tense and perfectly correct.
>
> Yes, I messed that up--I only realized the mistake after I had sent the
> message.
>
> Lass gives the preterite indic. of /bara/ with root vowel /a/ in the
> singular, root vowel LONG /�/ (hook o) for the plural. He says the pret.
> subj. vocalism is the same (his examples are Gothic, OE, and OIc) as
> the pret. pl. indicative vocalism. He fails to note that his OIc example
> shows i-umlaut for the pret. subj. so LONG /�/ (hook o)> � > � final
> step is i-umlaut) giving the vocalism for the pret. subj.
> (Gordon 8 and 34).
>
> >(Note that you seem to be mistaking '�' for small thorn.)
>
> Maybe it's my eyes. Is <�> the right character? Lass selects one character
> and uses it throughout these paradigms. I don't criticize this, since
> the Icelandic alternation is predictable and not important to what Lass
> is trying to do in the book.
>
> Yes, for 9 and 10 it is ni� and ti�, with accented vowels. Maybe this
> is a combination of liguistic archaeology and misprints.
>
> Lass's book is available on Amazon, and I bought my copy in the local
> bookstore. It is interesting and useful for the linguistically-minded
> non-specialist. As I said, there are lots of misprints, some of them
> significant. With you help, I now see that many of the OIc forms are
> not misprints, but a reflection of a different approach. Still, I think
> it would be better to give "classical" OIc forms in a book like this.
> The forms I was questioning seem better suited to a detailed discussion
> of OIc for advanced students.
>
> I am writing up all the points I question in this book, and will eventually
> mail them to Lass, in case there is a second edition. I am sure to learn
> something in the process! If anybody here wants to use Lass's book and
> would like my comments, I will send them, upon request, when I have them
> done.
>
> Again, thank all of you for responding. I'm pleasantly surprised to find
> such patient and expert help.
>
> Gazariah
>
>
>
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