Espectroscopia XPS de las EGn-SAMs

Front mutation, in common with its labial counterpart, mainly con-cerns the adoption by the vowel of a stressed syllable of a feature of the vowel or semi-vowel of the immediately following unstressed syl-lable. Here, however, the principal conditioning factors were the front vowel i and the front semi-vowel j. So-called ‘palatal r’ (or z, as in

*kuz/*ku^R, which developed to k‡r, see below), and the combined

influence of earlier -ge, -ke (as in *dage, which became degi, see below)

— as well as analogical levelling (the restructuring of forms by the force of analogy) — also played their part in this process. All the con-ditioning sounds are likely to have been pronounced with the front of the tongue raised close to its maximum height, and their presence had the effect of turning a preceding back vowel (one pronounced with the back of the tongue raised or lowered) into its front counterpart. Thus ó, for example, which is a mid-high back vowel (the back of the tongue is raised to above mid-height, but not to its full extent), became œ, a mid-high front vowel, when an i, j or other ‘conditioner’ followed.

That is why the masculine noun fótr ‘foot’ and the feminine bók ‘book’

have nominative plurals fœtr, bœkr respectively (see paradigms 7 and 19).

As these introductory remarks and examples suggest, front muta-tion, unlike the labial variety, is very much a historical process (it is also common to most Germanic languages, cf. English foot — feet, man — men, German Fuß — Füße, Mann — Männer). It occurred at a stage of Scandinavian language development that preceded Old Norse, and had ceased to be productive some time before the Old Norse period. This has two important consequences for the recognition of inflexions. First, we find an unstressed i that does not cause front mu-tation because it arose after the period when mumu-tation was taking place, e.g. dat. m. sg. armi ‘arm’ (< *arme). This circumstance makes it impossible to formulate a hard-and-fast rule (like a > ƒ before u, v) stating which stressed vowels we can expect to find immediately pre-ceding i. Second, the i, j or other conditioner triggering the fronting may no longer be present (very often it is not — cf. fœtr and bœkr above, earlier forms of which were *fotiz, *bokiz). This latter situa-tion is parallel to the loss of u in forms such as fjƒll ‘mountains’, hƒfn

‘harbour’, noted in 3.1.7.1.

With such complications, what the learner of Old Norse needs to know are the front mutation products of the back vowels affected, so that s/he may recognise that fótr — fœtr or bók — bœkr, for example, are different forms of the same lexical item. It is further useful to know where in different paradigms to expect front-mutated root vowels.

The back : front correspondences arising from front mutation, to-gether with examples (contrasting nom. sg. with nom. pl. unless other-wise stated), are as follows:

a —— e (dagr —— degi ‘day’, nom. and dat. m. sg.) á —— æ (tá —— tær ‘toe’, f.)

o —— ø (hnot —— hnøtr ‘nut’, f.) ó —— œ (bóndi —— bœndr ‘farmer’, m.)

u —— y (dura —— dyrr ‘doorway’, gen. and nom. f. pl.) ú —— ‡ (mús —— m‡ss ‘mouse’, f.)

au —— ey (aurar —— eyrir ‘ounce’, nom. m. pl. and sg.) Occasionally o (from an earlier u) and ó (from an earlier leng-thened a) can correspond to y and æ respectively (e.g. sonr —— synir

‘son’, m.; nótt —— nætr ‘night’, f.).

The places where front mutation forms are to be expected in noun paradigms are:

(1) nom., acc., gen. sg. of words (all masculine) ending in -ill (e.g.

lykill ‘key’ — dat. sg. lukli, pl. forms all with root lukl-; see paradigm 3).

(2) dat. sg. of certain masculines (notably those with root vowel ƒ in the nom. sg., e.g. hetti — nom. sg. hƒttr ‘hood’; birni — nom. sg.

bjƒrn ‘bear’ (not strictly mutation, but often counted as such, see 3.1.7.3); fœti — nom. sg. fótr ‘foot’; see paradigms 4, 5 and 7).

(3) nom. pl. of a good many masculines (again, notably those with root vowel ƒ in the nom. sg.) and feminines (e.g. kettir — nom. m. sg.

kƒttr ‘cat’; flættir — nom. m. sg. fláttr ‘strand’, ‘short story’; fe›r — nom. m. sg. fa›ir ‘father’; hendr — nom. f. sg. hƒnd ‘hand’; bœtr — nom. f. sg. bót ‘compensation’; k‡r — acc. f. sg. kú ‘cow’ (see (5) below); paradigms 5, 8, 18, 19, 21).

(4) acc. pl. of a few masculines (and, in later texts, of most of those with root vowel ƒ in the nom. sg.) and all feminines included under (3) (e.g. fœtr — nom. m. sg. fótr ‘foot’; velli (as alternative to vƒllu)

— nom. m. sg. vƒllr ‘field’ ‘ground’; fe›r, hendr, bœtr, k‡r — as under (3); paradigms 5, 7, 8, 18, 19, 21).

Additional cases of front mutation in nouns, affecting only a few words, but often very common ones, are:

(5) nom. and gen. sg. of the feminines k‡r ‘cow’; s‡r ‘sow’; ær ‘ewe’

(contrast acc. and dat. sg., gen. and dat. pl. of, e.g., k‡r: kú, kú, kúa, kúm; paradigm 21).

(6) gen. sg. of certain feminines (e.g. bœkr — nom. sg. bók ‘book’;

nætr — nom. sg. nátt ‘night’; the genitives of these feminines can also be found without mutation and with the more usual ending -ar;

paradigm 19).

(7) dat. sg., gen. and dat. pl. of four nouns of relationship: fa›ir

‘father’, m.; bró›ir ‘brother’, m.; mó›ir ‘mother’, f.; dóttir ‘daughter’, f.

(e.g. fe›r, dat. sg., fe›ra, gen. pl., fe›rum, dat. pl.; mœ›r, dat. sg., mœ›ra, gen. pl., mœ›rum, dat. pl.; the dative singular of these nouns can also be found with the ending -ur, causing labial rather than front mutation in fa›ir; paradigms 8, 22).

It is further worth noting a small group of weak masculines consist-ing of root + -and- suffix. These have front mutation in the nom. and acc. pl., but it affects the suffix only (e.g. dómandi ‘judge’, nom. and acc. pl. dómendr; with contraction of the suffix: bóndi (< búandi)

‘farmer’, nom./acc. pl. bœndr; paradigm 10).