Summary Details
| Query: |
Icelandic Phonology
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| Author: | Antony Dubach Green | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Phonology
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| Summary: |
I would like to thank everyone who responded to my question on Icelandic phonology, and post a summary of the responses I got. The following people provided me with answers to my questions: Birna Arnbjornsdottir <birna@aol.com> Istvan Bernath <bernath@euroweb.hu> Haraldur Bernhardsson <hb17@cornell.edu> Jakob Dempsey <jakob@saturn.yzu.edu.tw> Lance Eccles <leccles@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au> Thorsteinn G. Indridason <torsteinn.indridason@nor.uib.no> Nicholas Jones <nj@home.cam.net.uk> Wolfgang Kehrein <kehrein@mailer.uni-marburg.de> Magnus Petursson via Janina Schuldt <jschuldt@rrz.uni-hamburg.de> The questions and their summarized answers are these: >(1) Am I correct in assuming that the orthographic <d~t> contrastis >word-initially one of aspiration rather than voicing? I.e. <d> in <dag> 'day' >represents a voiceless unaspirated stop; while <t> in <tala> 'to speak' a >voiceless aspirated stop. Everyone agrees this is true. >(2) Am I correct in assuming that intervocalic <t> is actually UNaspirated? >E.g. in a word like <gata> 'street', the <t> represents the same sound as is >found at the beginning of <dag>, NOT the same as is found at the beginning of ><tala>. This is true for the southern dialect. In the northern dialect, the <t> of <gata> is aspirated. >(3) Are there any words in Icelandic with intervocalic orthographic <d> (not >counting morpheme-initial d after a prefix or in a compound)? A quick glance >through an Icelandic dictionary reveals lots of <d-> (edh) in this position, >but I couldn't find any <d>. If <d> does occur in this position, how is it >pronounced? Does it merge with the <t> of <gata>? Single intervocalic <d> in Icelandic seems to be found only in loanwords, e.g. Lada (a Russian make of car), py/rami/di 'pyramid' [/ indicates acute accent over preceding vowel], radar 'radar', radi/us 'radius', etc. It is pronounced as an unaspirated voiceless stop, and thus merges with the <t> of <gata> in the southern dialect. >(4) I have found a word-internal orthographic <d~t> contrast in the context >l_r: <heldri> 'notable' vs. <haltra> 'to hang'. Is there still a phonetic >difference between the d and the t? If so, what is it? In the southern dialect, there is no phonetic difference between the d and the t in these words; however the l in <heldri> is voiced while the l in <haltra> is devoiced. I also need to correct a gloss: <haltra> means 'to limp', not 'to hang'. The book I got this from is written in German and glosses <haltra> as 'hinken', which means 'to limp'. But I wasn't paying close enough attention, and thought it said 'henken', which means 'to hang'. In the northern dialect again, the <d> is unaspirated and the <t> aspirated. >(5) Are there any other relevant examples, e.g. -Vdr- vs. -Vtr-? No, but there are interesting contrasts between -Vddr- and -Vtr-: <saddra> 'satisfied' (gen. pl.) is pronounced [satra] with a short vowel, indicating that the initial syllable is closed, although the consonant is not pronounced as a geminate. Meanwhile, <titra> 'to tremble' is pronounced [tI:tra] with a long vowel, indicating that the initial syllable is open. A parallel contrast is found between -Vggv- and -Vkv-: <ho"ggva> [o" = o-umlaut] 'to hew' is [h#kva] [# = lower-mid front rounded vowel] with a short vowel, while <vo"kva> 'to water' is [v#:kva] with a long vowel. Finally, I would like to mention the following resources mentioned by respondents: Einarsson, Stefan (1945). _Icelandic: Grammar, Texts, Glossary_. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Fridjonsson (1984). _Phonetics of Modern Icelandic_. Haugen, E. (1982). _Scandinavian Language Structures_. Kress, Bruno (1982). _Islaendische Grammatik_. Leipzig: Enzyklopaedie. Petursson, Magnus (1978). _Islaendisch: Eine Uebersicht ueber die moderne islaendische Sprache mit einem kurzen Abriss der Geschichte und Literatur Islands._ Hamburg: Buske. Many thanks for your help! Antony D. Green - -------------------------------------------------------------------- Antony Dubach Green green@zas.gwz-berlin.de Zentrum fuer Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Jaegerstr. 10/11 Tel (+49 30) 20 192 574 10117 Berlin Deutschland Fax (+49 30) 20 192 402 GO MAIRE NA TEANGACHA CEILTEACHA! BYWIO YR IEITHOEDD CELTAIDD! |
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| LL Issue: | 9.264 | |
| Date Posted: | 22-Feb-1998 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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