This is the first issue of volume 34 of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics. The NJL is the journal of the Nordic Association of Linguists. Individuals may subscribe to the Journal by joining the Nordic Association of Linguists. The NAL membership form can be found on the Cambridge University Press web site of the NJL, http://journals.cambridge.org/NJL, as well as on the NAL web site, http://www.uef.fi/nal.

The second issue of volume 35 (2012) of the Nordic Journal of Linguistics will be a special issue devoted to Case Variation and Change in the Nordic Languages, edited by Jeffrey K. Parrott.

The topic of this paper is convergence in an asymmetrical bilingual setting, and it will be shown that the outcome of the convergence process is different in the dominant language (L1) from what it is in the receiving language (L2). In L1, there is complication of the receiving language, while there is reduction in the syntax of the L2.

Since Maling's (1980) study of embedded verb-second, Icelandic Stylistic Fronting has been an extensively studied aspect of Icelandic syntax. It is widely regarded as an optional fronting operation which moves an ordinarily post-verbal constituent to the pre-verbal domain just in case there is a subject gap. In this study, variationist methodology is employed to study quantitatively the conditioning effects of several syntactic and prosodic factors on Stylistic Fronting in two transcribed corpora of spoken Icelandic. The results show that some grammatical categories favor fronting more than others, and that fronting is affected by the number of syllables in the frontable constituent and the material surrounding the landing site. This lends support to the long-standing intuition that prosodic factors influence the choice to use Stylistic Fronting (which is syntactically optional), while at the same time suggests avenues for further research in addressing certain issues in the syntax of Stylistic Fronting, such as the ‘accessibility hierarchy’.