Glottal effects in Icelandic phonology.
Item
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Title
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Glottal effects in Icelandic phonology.
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Identifier
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AAI3148055
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identifier
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3148055
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Creator
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Dempsey, Gerald.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Charles E. Cairns
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Date
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2004
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Language, Linguistics
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Abstract
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In this dissertation I examine the unique role of aspiration in Icelandic phonology. I firmly establish the phenomenon of obstruent lengthening, thereby reducing the number of possible underlying representations of preaspiration from two to one. In so doing, I support the claim that geminate consonants are best represented in terms of units of length, which can be expressed as two segments or two root nodes, rather than units of weight, which are expressed as moras. In addition, I provide a unified account of the apparently disparate glottal phenomena of preaspiration, deaspiration, and devoicing.;I accomplish the unified account of glottal phenomena using a novel phonological model called Dynamic Phonology (DP; Calabrese 1995, 2002, 2003, 2004). In order to provide a background for the new model, in chapter one I present a review of the two most popular phonological theories, plus an overview of DP. In chapter two I show how DP works by applying its precepts to the vowel inventories of Old Icelandic and Modern Icelandic, thereby also showing how the language's vowel inventory evolved. In chapter three I present the consonant inventory of Modern Icelandic, mentioning two interesting aspects of that inventory along the way, including the unusual distribution of the voiceless sonorant phonemes /n&dotbelow;/, /l&dotbelow;/, /r&dotbelow;/ and /j/. In chapter four I present all the glottal phenomena of Icelandic, plus several prior analyses of these phenomena. Finally, in chapter five, I unify these phenomena by applying DP to the data.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
