OIcel i-umlaut
The so-called i-umlaut was a mostly morphologized system of vowel apophony in OIcel. The apophony is described in the table below1
| transition | example |
|---|---|
| u⁺ > y | flutjan > flytja |
| ú⁺ > ý | húsijan > hýsa |
| o⁺ > ø | sofiʀ > søfr |
| ó⁺ > ǿ | bótijan > bǿta |
| a⁺ > æ > e2 | gastiʀ > gæstr > gestr |
| á⁺ > ǽ | sárijan > sǽra |
| au⁺ > ey | brautijan > breyta |
Morphophonological i-umlaut
In the case of the OIcel u-stems and OIcel a-stems formed with the suffix -il we observe what may be described as morphophonological i-umlaut: a phonological rule which only holds in these morphological contexts, with few exceptions3. In the presence of an unstressed i the stressed vowel of the stem undergoes i-umlaut as described above.
Footnotes
-
2013, Norröne Grammatik im Überblick: Altisländisch und Altnorwegisch, §17 ↩
-
By the 12th century short æ and e have merged, so in normalised orthography we see ǽ written as æ. ↩
-
2013, Norröne Grammatik im Überblick: Altisländisch und Altnorwegisch, §22.2 ↩