> Now, in this frustrated state of mine, I see no real use for

Zoëga's

> dictionary if these things are not mentioned. Even with llama_nom's
> (thank you very much llama_nom) "conversion chart" it is possible

to

> possibly recognise this word as 2nd Declension but not the absense

of

> the -i in the Sing. Dat.

Frustration shared, though it is a handy quick way to find meanings,
etc. I look up words in situ if I want to know whether a particular
masc. i-stem has -i in dat.sg., searching for examples of usage on
Google or elsewhere (see below). Admittedly this might be confused
by the fact that many online ON texts appear in modern spelling, and
may be subtly adapted in other ways too. Maybe we should start
making a big list...

> But, as the experienced of you problably notice, the Singular

Dative

> is incorrect and should be simply 'gest'

Actually 'gesti' is possible too, and more normal in the texts I've
seen--but according to Gordon's Introduction to Old Norse,
both 'gest' and 'gesti' occur. As Peter Pettersson's site mentions,
some masculine i-stems, including 'gestr', can have dative sg. -i,
due to analogy with the a-stems (this is one thing which just
knowing the stem wouldn't tell you; you just have to learn them as
you meet them I think). I agree it's a pity Zoega doesn't give any
clues about this, unless the dat.sg. happens to appear in one of his
examples. There is no surefire system as far as I know for working
this out from Zoega or from etymology. You can search for word
forms in the text database here:

http://www.lexis.hi.is/corpus/leit.pl

Dot the box for 'fornrit' for medieval texts, but be aware that a
lot of them appear here in modern spelling. The simplest way is to
type a word into the bottom window and click on LEIT "search". (You
can theoretically also type a word into that top left window, click
on SÆKJA ORÐMYNDIR and look for the whole declension. I just tried
it now with GESTR and this disn´t work even by clicking on EINNIG
GAMLAR ORÐMYNDIR "also old word-forms", but GESTUR did the trick.)

I also make much use of Google (e.g. type 'þeim' + the word in
question + some distinctively Old Icelandic wordform to eliminate
modern examples--not perfect, but you can often answer questions
this way, 'í þeim stað' "in that place") and these other two online
ON dictionaries (the first is out of action at the moment, but I'm
sure it'll be back; Zoega's dictionary is actually an abridgement on
this one):

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/oi_cleasbyvigfusson_abou
t.html#images

http://www.dok.hf.uio.no/perl/search/search.cgi?appid=86&tabid=1275

The second dictionary (Fritzner) doesn't list dat.sg. either, I'm
afraid, but often has more examples than Zoega.

LN