Parts of a new model of phonology-morphology-lexicon interplay is presented to account for the complex distribution of the Modern Danish stød (a syllabic prosody). Stød, which is sometimes productive for speakers, is analysed as a signal of the second mora of bimoraic syllables not subject to the Non-Stød Principle (NSP). The author's cross-language model for Systematically Graded Productivity of Endings (section 3) is shown to account for the application of NSP (section 4), and a detailed typology of lexemes with respect to stød-alternations, derived from the model, is presented in section 5. In section 6, a simple case of stød-alternations in inflection, viz. regular plurals of nouns, is given, and section 7 exemplifies stød and non-stød as a key to morphology for the addressee.

In Icelandic, and in most dialects of Faroese, the fundamental laryngeal stop contrast is one of aspiration. This contrast is neutralized in certain positions, following patterns which appear problematic for perceptually-based theories (licensing by cue). In postvocalic onset position, a cue-rich environment, the contrast is absent in Icelandic. Most dialects neutralize to unaspirated [p, t, k], whereas others have postaspirated [ph, th, kh] instead. In the latter case, the appearance of loanwords with intervocalic [p, t, k] is now creating an incipient aspiration contrast, undoing the previous neutralization pattern. The implications of these facts for Optimality Theory (Richness of the Base) are discussed. In certain dialects of Faroese, such postvocalic singleton onsets are realized as PREaspirated [hp, ht, hk]. Curiously, this preaspiration is suppressed in precisely the contexts where it ought to be most salient. An OT analysis is developed to account for this distribution.

While standard Norwegian is a V2 language, some Norwegian dialects exhibit V3 in certain types of wh-questions. In some previous work on the Tromsø dialect, V3 has been considered the ‘true’ dialect and speakers' acceptance of V2 simply a result of the influence from the standard language. Based on child and adult data from a study of the acquisition of word order in the Tromsø dialect, I will argue that both V2 and V3 orders are part of the dialect – used by adult speakers and acquired (more or less) simultaneously by children. It will further be argued that the choice between the two depends on the information structure of the sentence, more specifically, on the interpretation of the subject as given or new information.