At 6:15:16 AM on Wednesday, March 24, 2010, servupro wrote:

> Brian,

> I read over your comments again and I think I understand
> (please correct me if I've still misunderstood):

> Either use "at eins má einn" or "at eins má einn vera". Is
> this like saying "only one is permitted" vs. "only one is
> permitted to exist"?

Roughly, yes, except that such omissions are much more
common in ON than in English. My inclination would be to
omit <vera>.

> Also, by saying "<Aðeins> is a later form of <at eins>",
> do you mean Aðeins isn't really Old Norse?

It isn't standard normalized Old Norse, at any rate, and it
is the modern form. Some of the surviving manuscripts show
the occasional modern form earlier than one might expect,
and I don't know just when <aðeins> first appears, but if I
wanted classical Old Norse, I'd use <at eins>.

I should probably emphasize that although I've been reading
Old Norse off and on for some 20 years now, I don't claim to
be expert.

Brian