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Foot and Syllable Structure in Modern Icelandic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

Gregory K. Iverson  and
Courtenay A. Kesterson
Gregory K. Iverson
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA.
Courtenay A. Kesterson
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA.
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Abstract

As is well known, vowel length in Modern Icelandic is in general predictable on the basis of syllable structure such that, in polysyllabic words, stressed vowels in open syllables are long, other vowels are short; in stressed monosyllables, however, vowels are long whether the syllable is open or closed by a single consonant, and short only when the syllable is closed by a consonant cluster. In contrast to the ‘final maximalistic’ strategy of Árnason (1980) and other unlikely syllabification schemes designed to unify these two patterns, we invoke Giegerich's (1985) characterization of foot structure as applied to German and English, according to which stressed monosyllables categorize metrically as disyllabic feet whose rightmost member is null. Thus, CVC structures are metrically /CV.CØ/, with the result that the generalization regarding vowel length in words of all types is simply that stressed vowels in open syllables are long, others short.

Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , June 1989 , pp. 13 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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