1. Linguistic considerations
This is not currently part of the peer-reviewed material of the project. Do not cite as a research publication.
We may assume general conformity or comparability to known phenomena of orthography, phonology, grammar, syntax, lexis, word-formation, and semantics.
However, there are problems, including:
a. To what extent does the linguistics of skaldic poetry differ from that of the ‘ordinary’ language? This is especially difficult to quantify given the paucity of records of linguistic usage contemporary with the earlier poetry. Further, some usages that seem to occur in skaldic poetry have not, so far as the present writer (DW) is aware, been fully investigated, e.g. lack of number concord between nouns/pronouns and verbs in the same clause, use of plural nouns/noun phrases with singular meaning, use of dual pronoun with non-dual meaning, or subjectless verbs.
b. It may be difficult to distinguish between corruptions and otherwise unrecorded words. Factors in favour of postulating otherwise unrecorded words would include:
i. compounding from known elements according to known templates
ii. related Icelandic words, or cognates in other Germanic languages
iii. postulated formation is plausible
iv. if a foreign adoption is assumed, a plausible route of adoption can be envisaged.
c. Some key resources are highly interdependent, and suffer from the same heavily interventionist editorial approach, especially Skj B, LP, and Meissner 1921. Information gleaned from these therefore must be checked against Skj A, and eventually against the new edition. Some authentic words, by-forms and usages may have been lost by emendation. On the other hand, other lexicographical resources are far superior to those available to earlier generations, e.g. Kellogg 1988, La Farge and Tucker 1992, Horii 1992, Orðstöðulykill, Samnordisk Runtextdatabas, and the published and unpublished material of ONP.