9.264, Sum: Icelandic Phonolgy

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-9-264. Sun Feb 22 1998. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 9.264, Sum: Icelandic Phonolgy

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1)
Date:  Fri, 20 Feb 1998 03:22:46 -0500
From:  Antony Dubach Green <green at zas.gwz-berlin.de>
Subject:  Icelandic Phonology

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Fri, 20 Feb 1998 03:22:46 -0500
From:  Antony Dubach Green <green at zas.gwz-berlin.de>
Subject:  Icelandic Phonology

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 at aol.com>
   Istvan Bernath <bernath at euroweb.hu>
   Haraldur Bernhardsson <hb17 at cornell.edu>
   Jakob Dempsey <jakob at saturn.yzu.edu.tw>
   Lance Eccles <leccles at laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au>
   Thorsteinn G. Indridason <torsteinn.indridason at nor.uib.no>
   Nicholas Jones <nj at home.cam.net.uk>
   Wolfgang Kehrein <kehrein at mailer.uni-marburg.de>
   Magnus Petursson via Janina Schuldt <jschuldt at 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 at 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

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