Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1983, Page 81

Ahersla og hrynjandi í íslenskum orðum
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Selkirk, Elisabeth O. 1980. The Role of Prosodic Categories in English Word
Stress. Linguistic Inquiry 11:563-605.
Sigurd, Bengt. 1955. Rank Order of Consonants Established by Distributional
Criteria. Studia Linguistica 9:8-20.
Sveinn Bergsveinsson. 1941. Grundfragen der isldndischen Satzphonetik. Ejnar
Munksgaard, Kaupmannahöfn.
SUMMARY
This paper presents an analysis of the rhythmic patterning of Modern Icelandic
word stress. With primary stress fixed on the first syllable, Modern Icelandic words
show a tendency towards an alternation between relatively strong and relatively
weak syllables. Thus words like 'almapiak ‘almanac’ (nom. sg.) have a secondary
stress on the third syllable, and in 'almapiakann^a ‘the almanacs’ (gen. pl.), the
third and the fifth syllables have a secondary stress (1 denotes primary and , sec-
ondary stress). With the help of recent theoretical innovations that have developed
within the theoretical framework of metrical phonology, an analysis is presented
which seems to account well for the distribution of Modem Icelandic word stress.
Two phonological transformations aiming at alternating stress are assumed. On
the one hand strengthening (styrking) assigns additional strength to a weak
syllable not adjacent to an underlyingly strong syllable. This accounts for the
secondary stress of the third syllable of 'alma,nak and the third and fifth syllable
of 'alma:nakannta. (Strengthening corresponds to W-pairing suggested by Giegerich
198la, 1983.) On the other hand, the second syllable of a compound like 'ung-
barntið ‘the infant’, where the second syllable corresponding to a primary stress of
the word barnið ‘the child’, is weakened by a process here called weakening
(veiklun), but which corresponds to what Selkirk (1980) and Giegerich (198 la,
1983) call Defooting. By this process, an underlyingly strong syllable is weakened
and made subordinate to a preceding strong syllable.
To account for the stress of monosyllabic words, zero syllables are assumed in
the „underlying structure":
d) /\
s v
hús 0
These zeros provide empty slots that in context may be filled by following syllables.
Thus the underlying structure of 'ungharnfð is assumed to be:
B> /\
S V
/\
S V S V
ung 0 barnið
and weakening makes the first syllable of barnið subordinate to the strong syllable
ung-: