Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1984, Page 137

KRISTJÁN ÁRNASON
Toward a Model of Modern Icelandic
Syllable Types
0. Introduction
A suggestion is made in the following that a coherent model of
the types of stressed syllable in Modern Icelandic may be formed with
the aid of a system of vowel qualities, a set of three articulatory para-
meters, (a) voicing (b) manner of articulation (c) place of articulation,
and a hierarchical structure where the syllable is assumed to function
as an abstract unit of phonological organization with two immediate
constituents, onset and rhyme, the latter of which is divisible into two
lower constituents, nucleus and coda. (For a partly similar analysis
of English, see Fudge 1969.) Thus the syllable will be seen as having
the following structure:
The main concern here will be the structure of the rhyme, leaving
the analysis of the onset as an enterprise for the future.*
1. Syllabication
The first question that comes up in this context is the problem of
syllabication. If forms like hestur [hes^Yr] ‘horse’, vilja [vllja] ‘to
want’, búa [þuwa], [þu:a], ‘to live’, henda [hen^a] ‘to throw’ etc. are
to be analyzed as containing lexically two syllables (a stressed one,
followed by an unstressed one), the question arises where to put the
boundary between the two syllables, or whether such a boundary can
* I am grateful to Höskuldur Thráinsson for valuable comments on an earlier
version of this paper. Needless to say, he bears no responsibility for the content.