Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1992, Page 125

Phonological Variation in 20th Century Icelandic
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interplay between structural and social forces. The reason why the
dialectal stop variants in (21) are receding may be partly social. Thus
We can recall at least one informant who told us that he had a negative
feeling toward the stop pronunciation [hapði] for hafði when he heard
!t in the speech of his father, even though he felt positively toward other
features in his home dialect. He was not able to tell us why he had this
feeling. Indeed, value judgments of this sort may have very complex
causes and they may vary from one group to another within the same
community. Thus it has been observed that certain groups of speakers
tend to accommodate to some (formal or informal) norm, e.g. if they
don’t feel particularly attached to the place where they grew up, whereas
others accommodate to the speech of a local group because they identify
with it (cf. e.g. Labov’s classic study of the Martha’s Vineyard dialect
(1972:1-42)). In any case, negative or positive feelings may obviously
mfluence the direction of accommodation, whatever their reason, and
111 the case of the [pð, kð]-pronunciation under discussion here, this
uifluence may have overridden any conceivable structural reasons. The
fact that the fricative pronunciation tallied with the spelling, at least in
part (“g” being an ambiguous orthographic symbol in Icelandic), may
ulso have helped it along.
Retuming to the [ks]-pronunciation, we might say that the reason
that it has arisen within the last 20 years or so may have something
to do with the stop conspiracy (or inherent complexity of fricative
sequences). Note, however, that it has arisen out of a sequence of
two voiceless stops whereas the [pð, kð] correspond to sequences of
two voiced stops. This lack of stmctural similarity with the other stop
lnn°vations may play a role in their different status in the modem
language. From a sociolinguistic point of view, we could say that it
has prevented the [ks]-pronunciation from getting the same (negative)
social value as the other stop variants.
^e do not have much to offer by way of explanation of the origin of
ihe glottalization phenomenon. We do not see any particular linguistic
reasons why it could not spread. It is more of a question whether it and
^he [ks]-pronunciation (the two most recent innovations discussed here)