OIcel v-insertion
Some OIcel noun, adjective, and verb stems belong to morphological subclasses that undergo v-insertion, meaning a linking -v- precedes all inflectional endings beginning with i or a.1 In many cases such words also exhibit a rounded vowel in the stem. The lack of a -v- before u may be viewed as the result of OIcel v-deletion.
Footnotes
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2013, Norröne Grammatik im Überblick: Altisländisch und Altnorwegisch, §23, rule 20 ↩