The Phonology of Icelandic and Faroese [Hardcover]

This book presents a comprehensive, contrastive account of the phonological structures and characteristics of Icelandic and Faroese. It is written for Nordic linguists and theoretical phonologists interested in what the languages reveal about phonological structure and phonological change and the relation between morphology, phonology, and phonetics. The book is divided into five parts. In the first Professor Arnason provides the theoretical and historical context of his investigation. Icelandic and Faroese originate from the West-Scandinavian or Norse spoken in Norway, Iceland and part of the Scottish Isles at the end of the Viking Age. The modern spoken languages are barely intelligible to each other and, despite many common phonological characteristics, exhibit differences that raise questions about their historical and structural relation and about phonological change more generally. Separate parts are devoted to synchronic analysis of the sounds of the languages, their phonological oppositions, syllabic structure and phonotactics, lexical morphophonemics, rhythmic structure, intonation and postlexical variation. The book draws on the author's and others' published work and presents the results of original research in Faroese and Icelandic phonology.

Part One: The Historical and Theoretical Setting
1. The Two Languages and Their Historical Relation
2. The Historical Development
3. Theoretical Preliminaries to the Synchronic Analysis
Part Two: The Modern Sound Systems
4. The Icelandic Vowel Colours and Diphthongs
5. Faroese Vowels and Diphthongs
6. Icelaneic Consonants
7. Faroese Consonant Segments
Part Three: Systemic Relations and Syllabic Structure
8. Systemic Relations in Vowels
9. Syllable Structure and Phonotactics
10. Length and Quantity in Accentuation and Phonotactics
Part Four: Segments and Syllables on Phonological Levels
11. Aspiration lÃ0