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Author: Nick Ritter
Email: ridaraz at visi dot com
Date: 2008-06-19 20:55:25
Subject: Old Norse Phonology (vowels)
Hello,
I'm working on IPA transcriptions of Eddic poetry, after having read Voyles' "Early Germanic Grammar" and Gordon's appendix on Old Norse phonology in "An Introduction to Old Norse". I'm wondering if Gordon's phonetic transcriptions of ON vowels are accurate. He seems to indicate that most short vowels in ON were tense, whereas I had thought they were lax.
Also, he distinguishes between the pronunciations of "normal" short e (tense), and "hooked" e (lax); is the difference between the two that "hooked" e is the result of i-umlaut on short a? Similarly, he distinguishes between ø(1) and ø(2), again the former tense and the latter lax. Is there any similar way (i.e. etymologically) of determining what vowel one is dealing with in a given word?
Finally, Gordon transcribes both long and short "hooked" o as mid back lax rounded vowels, whereas Voyles seems to indicate that they were low, as opposed to mid. Is there any scholarly consensus on this?
Thanks,
Nick