Hinn 23. júní 2004 lét phantomnose þetta frá sér fara:

> Hello. I have a question regarding the very end of lesson 1. The
> second line of the Voluspa that is quoted "Heitir Yggdrasill." Now it
> states that "in poetry it is quite normal for the subject to be
> dropped.". What I was wondering is why Yggdrasill (the compliment of
> this sentence) does not have the suffix -r.
> Is this a mistake or is it because the subject of this sentence has
> been dropped? Or is there another 'more advanced'(or blatantly
> obvious) reason?

Good question :)

You're quite right that the word 'Yggdrasill' is in nominative
and that all the vocabulary words introduced in the first lesson
have 'r' as a nominative ending.

As is, however, hinted at in the lesson there are other groups of
words that do not have 'r' as a nominative ending. It is, in fact,
largely confined to the 'strong masculine' declension.

"So what declension class is 'Yggdrasill' in?", you might ask. Well, as a matter
of fact it _is_ a strong masculine word. It is, however, of a variation that does
not show the nominative 'r'. Actually it used to have that ending but the 'r' was
_assimilated_ to the preceding 'l' at an earlier stage of the language.

*Yggdrasilr > Yggdrasill (actually a slight oversimplification, but good enough)

This phenomenon is explained in more detail in Lesson 8
(http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/olessons/lesson8.php?colors=1).

A few other examples of strong masculine words with assimilation:

*jötunr -> jötunn (accusative 'jötun')

*Egilr -> Egill (accusative 'Egil')

*ásr -> áss (accusative 'ás')

*þrælr -> þræll (accusative 'þræl')

Good luck and have fun studying :)

Kveðja,
Haukur