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Naturalness, Morphonology, and the Icelandic Velar Palatalisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

Edmund Gussmann
Edmund Gussmann
Affiliation:
Catholic University of Lublin, A1. Ractawickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
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Abstract

The Icelandic palatalisation of velar plosives has been used in several recent studies as evidence in the continuing search for an adequate model of phonology. Limitations of the naturalness of the rule in the modern language have led to suggestions that it is no longer a phonological but rather a morphonological process. The present paper reviews in some detail the status of the rule against a background of other phonological and morphological regularities in Modern Icelandic. It is concluded that while not every instance of a palatal consonant must necessarily be derived from an underlying velar, the evidence for the rule is overwhelming. The separation of phonological and morphonological rules is critically examined in the light of the Icelandic data and rejected; its untenability is further strengthened by the history of the rule. It is argued that while mechanical phonetic tendencies play a role in the rise of innovations, their entrenchment in the phonology of a language is not bound by such considerations. In effect phonological rules must always be to a greater or lesser extent unnatural.

Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , December 1984 , pp. 145 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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