Heill Llama.

> > the word 'land' (sg. ME land) could theoretically be written

with either a-rune (as indeed it was). The problem here is that
short vowels can also occur nasalized, as implied in the First
Grammatical Treatise, _but_ they do not occur without the nasal
consonant being preserved (compare 'land' above, where -n- is
preserved), leaving no compelling reason to select to áss-rune over
the ár-rune in writing.

> Can we assume then that, as far as the First Grammarian was

concerned, (short) nasal vowels didn't occur in unstressed positions-
-e.g. infinitives, 3rd person plural, n-stem nouns and adjectives--
except where the nasal consonant was preserved? Even though they
may have survived much longer in part of Sweden...

From the first grammarian, we could hardly conclude this, as the
topic of nasal/non-nasal vowel in unstressed positions was not
addressed by him. I, however, with no sources to support me, or to
contradict me, on this issue am of the opinion that the open vowels
in unstressed positions (i.e. final vowels with no following
consonants) were no longer nasalized in Old Norse. They are, at
least, short. In Old Norse, I think, only initial or medial vowels
could be nasalized, the short ones only where the nasal consonant is
preserved (m or n). Although nothing can be proven either way about
the nasality/non-nasality of final open vowels, I would certainly
venture to suppose that they were not nasalized any longer. Consider
also that nasalization could disappear by assimilation of the nasal
consonant in conjunction with vowel being shorted (in some cases
having been originally short). Here is an example: vetr (winter) is
from vintr (attested on the west-norse Kule Stone from Nordmoerr in
mid-western Norway from around 1000). Vetr is not thought to have
been nasalized in pronunciation, due to assimilation. In general, no
short vowel appear to have been nasalized in Old Norse unless it was
actually immeadiately followed by or preceeded by a nasal consonant
(n or m). This is probably the best answer that I can give here and,
I think, most likely an accurate one.

> Another nasal curiosity: the First Grammatical Treatise contrasts

the long oral vowel of 'sýna' (gen.pl. of sýja "lap [of boards on
ship]") with nasal 'sy~na' "show". Einar Haugen interpreted this as
demonstrating that "the nasalisation due to a following consonant
did not work across a morpheme bourndary". But I don't understand
how this can apply to 'brýnna' "sharper" (breeze) as
against 'bry.nna' "to water" (cattle); 'ru.nar' "boars"
versus 'rúnar' "letters". Each of these last two examples is marked
with a dot over the vowel are given in dictionaries (Fritzner,
Cleasby-Vigfusson, Zoega) as short, inf. brynna, nominative sg. runi.

Hmmm. About sýna (the gen.pl.), I would see the etymology here. If
it had a non-nasal pronunciation, I suspect that it might have
something to do with this, but I will look at this later when I have
time to examine this passage in the treatise and have checked the
etymology of the words concerned. There are some curiosities, also,
in the treatise. For examaple, ON verr ('man'/'being'/etc. is from
Proto-Norse *weraz from PIE *wiros), where the vowel is natural a,
not the i-mutation of a (i.e. short æ), is written with a short æ in
the treatise in the same section you quote from (the letter used is
e with a small hook under it = short æ). This really does not work
etymologically speaking and my better judgement tells me that it is
not correct.

Regards,
Konrad

> Llama Nom