Pavel Iosad - Böcker

This volume explores tonal accent across a variety of the world's languages from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. Tonal accent lies at the heart of current debates on the typology of prosodic representations, one of the most controversial fields in contemporary phonological theory; the phenomenon is relevant to both word prominence and tone, but its status remains somewhat unclear. The chapters in this volume present and evaluate the current state of research in the field and demonstrate that the study of tonal accent can shed light on multiple important questions in phonology. They also outline directions for future research, based on novel and underused empirical data and on the principle of contextualizing different, language-specific research traditions within broader theoretical debates.

Several language families of northern Europe - Germanic, Celtic, and Uralic - share phonetic and phonological patterns that are typologically unusual. This book demonstrates how we can better understand these convergences: they exemplify the phenomenon of drift. Using the latest advances in theoretical linguistics, the study of sound change, and language variation, it offers insights into the development of these features and what they tell us about past cultural and linguistic contacts. Although the languages are not closely related, an understanding of drift grounded in the theory of the life cycle of phonological patterns reveals the workings of convergent developments. Covering a wide range of vernacular varieties, this book shows how phonological microvariation is illuminated by an approach grounded in the theory of the life cycle and historical sociolinguistics. It is essential reading for historical and theoretical linguists, and anyone with an interest in the cultural and linguistic contacts across northern Europe.

What is the relationship between phonetics and phonology? Are phonological features innate and universal, and do they have fixed phonetic correlates? These questions have received renewed prominence in theoretical debates, and this book explores them from a modular, substance-free perspective. This in-depth analysis of Breton serves not only to introduce important data from this endangered language into the theoretical landscape but also to demonstrate the viability of a modular phonological framework. The book introduces a minimalist system of phonological representations built up on a language-specific basis, and integrates it with a fully-fledged computational framework, showcasing the numerous empirical and conceptual advantages of a substance-free view of phonology.Presenting the first comprehensive analysis of the sound patterns of a Breton variety treated in a substance-free phonological framework, this book will enhance the understanding of Celtic phonology and offers a valuable reference for postgraduate students, academics and researchers working in phonological theory and Celtic studies.