Ég er, ég vill og ég fćrŢáttur úr beygingarsögu eintölu framsöguháttar nútíđar
ÚtdrátturÉg er [‘I am’], ég vill [‘I want’], and ég fær [‘I get’]On the Development of the Present Indicative Singular
In Modern Icelandic, the verb vilja ‘want, wish’ is currently undergoing a morphological change in the present indicative: beside the original 1st person singular vil, the form vill, originating in the 3rd person, is rapidly gaining ground. In the 1st person it is thus common to hear ég vill ‘I want’ beside the standard ég vil. At the same time there is also a tendency to replace the standard 3rd person form vill with the 1st person form vil; hann/hún/það vill ‘he/she/it wants’ thus sometimes becomes hann/hún/það vil. As described in section 2, these morphological changes in the present indicative of vilja are relatively recent, not appearing until the 20th century. Data counts based on written language available on the Internet indicate that the change in the 1st person, (ég) vil → vill, predominates the change in the 3rd person, (hann/hún/það) vill → vil. In child language it is not uncommon to hear 3rd person verbal forms used inthe 1st and 2nd person; this tendency, however, is rarely witnessed outside child language — except in the verb vilja. The morphological changes currently underwayin the verb vilja raise two main questions which are the focus of this paper: First, why is there a clear tendency to use the 3rd person form of the verb vilja in the 1st person after language acquisition has been completed and the same tendency is no longer detectable in other verbs? Second, why is there also at the same time an opposite tendency to use the 1st person form of vilja in the 3rd person? As discussed in section 3, it is likely that the complexity of the singular paradigm of vilja serves as a trigger for the morphological changes: the standard paradigm, 1st sing.vil-Ø, 2nd sing. vil-t, 3rd sing. vill-Ø, contains three different inflected forms and two different stem forms (vil- and vill-). Each of the two ongoing morphological changes neutralizes the distinction of the 1st and 3rd person, resulting in a paradigm with only two different inflected forms: 1 vill-Ø, 2 vil-t, 3 vill-Ø or 1 vil-Ø, 2 vil-t, 3 vil-Ø. As the merger of the 1st and 3rd person appears not to be a general tendency in the verbal system, it is necessary to examine existing patterns in the singular paradigm of other Icelandic verbs. The framework of Natural Morphology as set forth by Wurzel (1989) is used to determine which of the existing patterns are most natural or system-congruous. Section 4 provides a survey of contrastive patterns in the verbal morphology of the singular active in Modern Icelandic and Old Icelandic. Four patterns emerge: Pattern A with a two-way distinction where the 1st person is contrasted by the identical forms of the 2nd and 3rd person; this can described as 1 ≠ 2 = 3. Pattern B also has a two-way distinction where the 1st and 3rd person have identical forms opposed the the 2nd person: 1 = 3 ≠ 2. In Pattern C, on the other hand, each person has its unique form: 1 ≠ 2≠ 3. Finally, Pattern D has three identical forms: 1 = 2 = 3. The survey shows that Patterns A and B predominate in the singular active, whereas Patterns C and especiallyPattern D are less common. Moreover, the morphological development from OldIcelandic to Modern Icelandic shows a tendency for verbs to transfer from Pattern C to Pattern B. Patterns A and B are thus characteristic of the singular active paradigm and, as argued in section 5, they constitute the system-defining structural properties of the singular active in Icelandic, as defined by Wurzel (1989). Wurzel’s theory predicts that patterns that do not agree with the system-defining structural properties are prone to changes and tend to merge with the more system-congruous patterns. This is precisely what can be observed in Icelandic. The preterite indicative of weak verbs, the present conjunctive and preterite conjunctive of all verbs, has moved from Pattern Cto Pattern B in a series of changes that took place mainly in a period from the 14th century through the 16th century. In Old Icelandic, the present indicative of vera ‘to be’ also followed Pattern C, 1 e-m, 2 es-t/er-t, 3 es-Ø/er-Ø, but already in the first half of the 14th century, as a result of the change em → er in the 1st person, the paradigm was transferred to Pattern B, 1 er-Ø, 2 er-t, 3 er-Ø. Thus the present paradigm of vera became system-congruous. The changes currently underway in the verb vilja are part of this same morphological tendency, aiming at maximal system congruity. The standard singular paradigmof vilja follows Pattern C with its three-way distinction, 1 vil-Ø, 2 vil-t, 3 vill-Ø; consequently, it is not system-congruous. System congruity is obtained by each of the two changes—the change in the 1st person vil-Ø → vill-Ø or the change in the 3rd person vill-Ø → vil-Ø — both of which yield paradigms following Pattern B. In the first change, the 1st person takes up the form of the 3rd person; this is not surprising as the 3rd person is generally regarded as unmarked. The second change, however, raises questions, since it involves the 1st person form replacing the 3rd person form. This may to some extent be due to hypercorrection, as the 1st person form vill-Ø is generally considered substandard; the stigma associated with 1st person vill-Ø may have triggered the replacement of 3rd person vill-Ø by vil-Ø. Also, as argued by Tiersma (1982), verbs of perception and emotion tend to be used very frequently in the 1st person; consequently, the 1st person of such verbs may be considered locally unmarked. This, too, may have contributed to the change in the 3rd person of vilja. The analysis proposed here predicts that other verbs currently under the incongruous Pattern C will eventually be transferred to one of the system-congruous patterns, A or B. There are, in fact, indications that this prediction may be correct. The written language on the Internet shows numerous instances of the 1st person form fær of the verb fá ‘get’, suggesting an incipient change in the 1st person, fæ-Ø → fæ-r, by which the present paradigm 1 fæ-Ø, 2 fæ-rð, 3 fæ-r with Pattern C is replaced by a systemcongruous paradigm with Pattern B: 1 fæ-r, 2 fæ-rð, 3 fæ-r. Haraldur Bernharðsson | ||||
