The phonology of Icelandic and Faroese / Kristján Árnason.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kristján Árnason.

Series:

Phonology of the world's languages

The phonology of the world's languages

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Icelandic language--Phonology.

Icelandic language.

Faroese language--Phonology.

Faroese language.

Icelandic language--Grammar, Comparative--Faroese.

Faroese language--Grammar, Comparative--Icelandic.

Physical Description:

xvi, 349 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2011.

Contents:

Part I The historical and theoretical setting

1 The Two Languages and their Historical Relation 3

1.1 The genetic relation: 'Proto-West Nordic' 3

1.2 West Nordic obstruents 4

1.3 West Nordic sonorants 6

1.4 West Nordic vowels 7

1.5 Diphthongs and semivowels 8

1.6 Prosodic structure 8

2 The Historical Development 11

2.1 Quantity and prosodic structure 12

2.2 Overlong (superheavy) syllables and their development 15

2.3 The components of the quantity shift 17

2.4 Quality changes in the Icelandic vowel system 20

2.5 Faroese vowel developments 23

2.6 The short diphthongs 25

2.7 The West Nordic consonant shift 26

2.8 New postvocalic stops 28

2.9 The skerping and hiatus 31

2.10 Systemic arrangements and types of syllables 33

3 Theoretical Preliminaries to the Synchronic Analysis 35

3.1 Phonological levels of representation 35

3.2 Alphabets for phonological representation 39

3.2.1 Segments and distinctions 40

3.2.2 Phonological primes 41

3.2.3 Analysing diphthongization 43

3.3 The representation of time and precedence 47

3.4 Saturation and fission in West Nordic diphthongs 48

3.5 The modern diphthongal systems 51

Part II The modern sound systems

4 The Icelandic Vowel Colours and Diphthongs 57

4.1 The Icelandic vowel system 57

4.1.1 The monophthongal units 57

4.1.2 The phonetic description of the vowel sounds 60

4.1.3 Analysing the monophthongal colours 61

4.1.4 The diphthongs as branching phonemic units 62

4.1.5 Diphthongs and hiatus 65

4.2 The vowels of non-initial syllables 66

5 Faroese Vowels and Diphthongs 68

5.1 An overview 68

5.1.1 The inventory of vowels 68

5.1.2 The 'long' and 'short' systems 70

5.2 The phonetic and phonological analysis of the Faroese monophthongs and diphthongs 74

5.2.1 The vowel qualities 74

5.2.2 Analysing the Faroese diphthongs 76

5.3 More on dialect variation and vowel systems 79

5.4 Hiatus phenomena in Faroese 80

5.4.1 Intervocalic glides 80

5.4.2 Raising in hiatus 82

5.4.3 One or two syllables 85

5.5 The unstressed vowels of Faroese 86

5.5.1 The vowel qualities 86

5.5.2 The syllable types 88

5.5.3 Dialects and morphology in unstressed vowel merger 90

5.5.4 The postlexical reduction and syncope 94

5.5.5 Coping with the variation: a folk-linguistic anecdote from Tórshavn 96

6 Icelandic Consonants 98

6.1 An overview 98

6.2 The stops 99

6.2.1 Places of articulation 99

6.2.2 On palatals and velars 100

6.2.3 The fortis-lenis opposition 103

6.3 The fricatives 106

6.4 The sonorants 109

6.5 Summary: the classes of consonants and their element analysis 111

7 Faroese Consonant Segments 114

7.1 An overview 114

7.2 The fortis and lenis plosives 118

7.2.1 The phonological correlation 118

7.2.2 'Hard' and 'soft' dialects in Faroese 118

7.3 The fricatives 122

7.3.1 Initial fricatives 122

7.3.2 Word-internal fricatives and glides 123

7.4 Sonorants 124

7.5 The element analysis of the Faroese system 124

Part III Systemic relations and syllabic structure

8 Systemic Relations in Vowels 129

8.1 Trends towards a diasystem in Icelandic 129

8.1.1 The 'new' diphthongs 129

8.1.2 A context-free merger in the 'long' system 132

8.1.3 The interplay of merger and diphthongization 133

8.1.4 The 'long/open' and 'short/closed' correspondence 134

8.2 The Faroese vowel systems 135

8.2.1 The polysystemic structure 135

8.2.2 On prominence 138

8.3 The element analysis of reduction: limits on information in restricted environments 140

8.4 Conclusion: systemic relations in vowel systems 142

9 Syllable Structure and Phonotactics 144

9.1 Syllable structure in Icelandic 144

9.1.1 Motivating the syllable 144

9.1.2 The subsyllabic constituents 145

9.1.3 The Icelandic length rule 148

9.1.4 Half length and overlength 149

9.1.5 Emphatic stress on non-initial syllables 151

9.2 Faroese syllables 152

9.2.1 The length rule in Faroese 152

9.2.2 The template for full syllables in Faroese 155

9.2.3 Half length and overlength in Faroese 156

9.2.4 Full syllables and restricted syllables in the phonological hierarchy 157

9.3 The consonantal phonotactics of Icelandic 160

9.3.1 Initial onsets in Icelandic 161

9.3.2 Consonants in the Icelandic coda 165

9.3.3 Internal onsets in Icelandic 167

9.3.4 More complicated interludes in Icelandic 170

9.4 The consonantal phonotactics of Faroese 173

9.4.1 Monosegmental onsets 173

9.4.2 Initial clusters in Faroese 175

9.4.3 Faroese coda consonants 176

9.4.4 Internal onsets in Faroese 178

9.5 Gemination of glides and consonants 180

9.6 Conclusion: remarks on systemic structure and prominence 182

10 Length and Quantity in Accentuation and Phonotactics 185

10.1 Length and quantity in Icelandic 186

10.1.1 Some distinctions 186

10.1.2 Segmental length and syllabic structure 189

10.1.3 Length in postlexical accentuation 191

10.1.4 Representing length and quantity 195

Excursus: A brief comparison with Finland Swedish 202

10.2 The length rule on lexical and phonological levels in Icelandic 203

10.2.1 Length and syllabification 203

10.2.2 Two versions of the rule 205

10.3 The prosodic character of Faroese vowels 208

10.4 Vowel shortness and the scale of prominence 210

Part IV Segments and syllables on phonological levels

11 Aspiration in Syllabic and Segmental Structure 215

11.1 Aspiration and the character of the fortis-lenis opposition 216

11.1.1 Representing the opposition 216

11.1.2 Phonotactic or phonetic neutralization of the fortis-lenis opposition? 217

11.2 Preaspiration in Icelandic 219

11.2.1 The phonetic character 219

11.2.2 The distribution of preaspiration in Icelandic 220

11.2.3 Phonological analysis 222

11.2.4 Related phenomena 225

11.3 Preaspiration in Faroese 228

11.4 Representing the difference 230

11.5 Preaspiration in morphophonemics 231

12 Allomorphy, Morphophonemics, and Phonological Levels 234

12.1 Introduction 234

12.2 Lexical and postlexical relations in paradigms 235

12.3 Vocalic patterns in Icelandic 238

12.3.1 The ablaut series 238

12.3.2 I-umlaut 239

12.3.3 U-umlaut and breaking 243

12.3.4 Morphology and phonotactics in vocalic alternation 246

12.4 Faroese vowel morphophonemics 247

12.4.1 Ablaut 247

12.4.2 Umlaut 248

12.5 Consonantal patterns in Icelandic morphophonemics 250

12.6 Consonantal patterns in Faroese 252

12.7 Vowel deletion in paradigms 253

12.8 Intersyllabic glides and fricatives in allomorphy 257

12.9 Morphosyntax and phonology 259

12.9.1 Lexical and postlexical principles 259

12.9.2 Clitics 263

12.9.3 Fossilized and non-fossilized patterns in Faroese 264

12.10 Conclusion 265

Part V Rhythmic structure

13 Word Stress Patterns in Icelandic and Faroese 271

13.1 Icelandic word stress patterns 271

13.1.1 Native patterns 271

13.1.2 Foreign patterns in recent loans 274

13.2 Word stress patterns in Faroese 275

13.2.1 Native words 275

13.2.2 Loanwords in Faroese 278

13.3 The accommodation of foreign stress patterns 279

13.3.1 Right-strong forms in Icelandic 279

13.3.2 The Faroese patterns 280

13.4 Morphological considerations: Faroese pseudo-morphology? 282

14 Phrasing and Postlexical Phonology 285

14.1 Phonological phrasing 285

14.2 Systematic exceptions 286

14.2.1 Deaccenting of weak morphosyntactic categories 286

14.2.2 Deaccenting in Icelandic definite noun phrases 289

14.3 Pragmatically motivated exceptions 290

14.3.1 Emphatic rephrasing 290

14.3.2 Contrast, focus, and given information 291

14.4 The phonological consequences of phrasing 292

14.4.1 Cohesive laws or sandhi-rules in Icelandic 292

14.4.2 Sandhi in Faroese 297

14.4.3 Rhythmic rearrangement 300

14.5 Demarcative signals 300

14.5.1 Stress and glottal onset 301

14.5.2 Right hand signals in Icelandic 302

14.5.3 Demarcative signals in Faroese 302

14.6 Constituency and prominence 303

14.6.1 Boundaries or dependencies? 303

14.6.2 Domains, directionality, and prominence 305

15 Rhythm and Intonation 308

15.1 Rhythm and constituency 308

15.2 Icelandic intonation 313

15.2.1 The tonal inventory 314

15.2.2 Downstep and upstep 318

15.2.3 Functional considerations 320

15.3 Faroese intonation 324

15.4 The absence of word tones 326.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [329]-341) and index.

ISBN:

9780199229314

0199229317

OCLC:

694395522