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Syncope

The sound rule in Icelandic known as ✂️ syncope🇮🇸 brottfall involves cutting out the vowels a, i and u when they are in an unstressed syllable. This is syncope in a nutshell:

  • When adding an ending that starts with a vowel, drop the a, i or u before the ending.

The ✨ golden rule of stress in Icelandic is that it is always on the first syllable, so syncope only affects vowels that are not in the first syllable.

Adjectives​

Syncope occurs in adjectives that have the following endings in their dictionary form:

  • -inn, e.g. feiminn, gefinn, skrýtinn;
  • -all, -ill and -ull, e.g. gamall, lítill, mikill, þögull;
  • Adjectives with stem-based -ur, e.g. dapur.

Because syncope only occurs in non-stressed position, it doesn’t affect single-syllable adjectives like beinn, hreinn and snjall.

Adjective or past participle?

Many adjectives that end in -inn are formed from the past participles of verbs.

Let’s look at some examples:

 SingularPlural
Masc.Fem.Neu.Masc.Fem.Neu.
Nom.feiminnfeiminfeimiðfeimnirfeimnarfeimin
Acc.feimnafeimna
Dat.feimnumfeiminnifeimnufeimnum
Gen.feiminsfeiminnarfeiminsfeiminna

Note that syncope can interact with other sound processes in Icelandic such as the U-shift. This is demonstrated best in the declension of our faithful friend gamall.

Þögull is an unusual case. It has an ö in its stem, so you might expect there to be a reverse U-shift when we add endings that start with -a or -i, just like in the declension of nouns. This doesn’t happen though, and is likely why forms without syncope are also recognised in Beygingarlýsing íslensks nútímamáls (BÍN).

For brevity, only the 💪 positive strong inflection of adjectives is shown here, but syncope occurs in 🥀 all weak forms of the positive, applicable forms of the comparative, and all forms of the superlative.

lítill​

This adjective is in a wee class of its own. In forms with syncope, the í in the stem changes to i:

 SingularPlural
Masc.Fem.Neu.Masc.Fem.Neu.
Nom.lítilllítillítiðlitlirlitlarlítil
Acc.litlanlitlalitla
Dat.litlumlítillilitlulitlum
Gen.lítilslítillarlítilslítilla

Indefinite pronouns​

Indefinite pronouns in Icelandic generally use the same set of endings as adjectives, with a few quirks. The 2 pronouns affected by syncope are nokkur and annar:

 SingularPlural
Masc.Fem.Neu.Masc.Fem.Neu.
Nom.nokkurnokkurnokkuð/
nokkurt		nokkrirnokkrarnokkur
Acc.nokkrannokkranokkra
Dat.nokkrumnokkurrinokkrunokkrum
Gen.nokkursnokkurrarnokkursnokkurra

In the declension of nokkur, syncope occurs in all the same “slots” in the table as in the adjective declension. Contrast this to annar, which only has syncope in forms where nn changes to ðr.

Nouns​

Syncope can occur in nouns that have the following endings in their dictionary form:

  • Masculine nouns ending -inn and -unn, e.g. arinn, himinn, morgunn;
  • Masculine nouns ending -all, -ill and -ull, e.g. gafall, kaðall, seðill, tengill, böggull, djöfull;
  • Nouns with stem-based -ur, e.g. aldur, sykur, fjöður, silfur, veður.

As all masculine and feminine plural noun endings start with vowels, syncope will occur in all the plural forms of these words. In masculine nouns, the singular dative ending -i also causes syncope.

Here are some examples:

 SingularPlural
Indef.Def.Indef.Def.
Nom.arinnarinninnarnararnarnir
Acc.arinarininnarnaarnana
Dat.arniarninumörnumörnunum
Gen.arinsarinsinsarnaarnanna

There are a few things worth pointing out here:

  • As in adjectives and pronouns, syncope can interact with other sound processes such as the U-shift. Here U-shift can work in either direction depending on the stem vowel;
  • That said, some masculine nouns with ö in the stem, such as böggull, do not get the expected reverse U-shift;
  • In words with stem-based -ur, the definite article on its own does not cause syncope in masculine nouns like sykur, whereas it does in feminine and neuter nouns like fjöður and veður.

Exceptions​

As always, there are a few words that don’t quite play by the rules.

sumar​

Sumar has syncope in some forms, but not everywhere that you might expect it in other neuter nouns:

 SingularPlural
Indef.Def.Indef.Def.
Nom.sumarsumariðsumursumrin/
sumurin
Acc.
Dat.sumrisumrinusumrumsumrunum
Gen.sumarssumarsinssumrasumranna