Open this publication in new window or tab >>2022 (Swedish)In: Futhark: International Journal of Runic Studies, ISSN 1892-0950, E-ISSN 2003-296X, Vol. 12, p. 151-155Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
In Bo Ralph’s recent book on the Rök rune-stone he interprets the sequence sakum (sᴀɢwᴍ) as sāgum ‘we saw’ (Ralph 2021, 907–13), a lexico-morphologically unobjectionable solution. He rejects (pp. 148–54, 899) the previous and almost universally accepted interpretation sagum ‘we say’. This short contribution establishes that sagum is a possible variant of the ninth-century Runic Swedish verb sægia. It belongs to an ē/ja-conjugation where some forms are inflected according to the former paradigm and others to the latter. In Old High German, Old and Middle Dutch, and Old English descendants of both *sagjan and *sagēn are attested. Given the presence in Old Scandinavian of the 2nd and 3rd person present singular segir and the perfect participle sagaðr, which both are ē-inflections, there is reason to expect that even more ē-forms once existed in Old Scandinavian. The sequence sakum (sᴀɢwᴍ) in the Rök inscription may therefore represent sagum, a 1st person form of sægia ‘say’. Whether this or Ralph’s interpretation is the best depends on the contextual understanding of the text.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Uppsala universitet, 2022
Keywords
Ög 136, Rök runic inscription, verb inflection
National Category
Languages and Literature
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-491885 (URN)10.33063/diva-491885 (DOI)
Note
https://doi.org/10.33063/diva-491885
2022-12-302022-12-302023-06-01Bibliographically approved