A Phonetic Faithfulness Analysis of Sonorant Devoicing in Icelandic

Kim, Yeong-Joon

doi:10.30961/lr.2025.61.2.135

Lang. Res. 61(2):135-170

pISSN: 0254-4474, eISSN: 2586-7113

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30961/lr.2025.61.2.135

Article

A Phonetic Faithfulness Analysis of Sonorant Devoicing in Icelandic

Yeong-Joon Kim ¹ ^, ^†

Author Information & Copyright ▼

¹Seoul National University

^†Corresponding author: Postdoctoral Fellow Department of Linguistics, College of Humanities Seoul National University 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Korea, E-mail: henrique@snu.ac.kr

ⓒ Copyright 2025 Language Education Institute, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Jul 05, 2025 ; Revised: Aug 09, 2025 ; Accepted: Aug 12, 2025

Published Online: Aug 31, 2025

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes sonorant devoicing in Icelandic, conditioned by underlyingly aspirated stops (e.g., /vant^ha/ → [van̥ta]). This process exemplifies overapplication opacity: the sonorant surfaces as voiceless even though the triggering aspiration is neutralized. I propose that this opaque interaction arises from the preservation of subphonemic coarticulatory detail. The analysis is developed within the Phonetic Faithfulness model, wherein phonology operates on a phonetically detailed source representation that grammatically encodes anticipatory devoicing. This account derives Icelandic overapplication opacity by appealing to the grammar’s sensitivity to finer-grained phonetic detail, supporting the view that complex phonological patterns can be shaped by phonetic considerations.

Keywords: Icelandic; voiceless sonorant; opacity; aspiration; phonetically based phonology

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