Synchronic Umlaut in Old Icelandic

Abstract

Recent papers by Cathey and Demers (1975, 1976, 1977, ms) have incorporated an analysis of Old Icelandic phonology in which purely phonetically conditioned rules of i -Umlaut and u -Umlaut are crucial not only to the analysis itself, but to the theoretical implications theauthors draw from that analysis. Synchronically, however, the non exceptional application of i -Umlaut is restricted to just four morpho-syntactic classes: athematic and j -thematic verbs in the preterite subjunctive, j -thematic verbs in the non-preterite, adjectives with a consonant-initial comparative suffix, and athematic feminine or plural r -stem nouns. Historical u-Umlaut continues to round a to Q before u in the next syllable even in literary Old Icelandic, but its application is also morphologically induced, viz. a → Q in all feminines, plurals, and u-stems not followed by a vocalic suffix. All intraparadigmatic umlaut alternations are covered by these morphologizations, which in turn obviate the abstractions proposed by Cathey and Demers.