• ‘Pitch accent’ and prosodic structure in Scottish Gaelic: Reassessing the role of contact

    Author(s):
    Pavel Iosad (see profile)
    Date:
    2015
    Subject(s):
    Celtic languages, Scandinavian languages, Linguistics
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Tag(s):
    Scandinvian linguistics
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6VV6S
    Abstract:
    This paper considers the origin of ‘pitch accents’ in Scottish Gaelic with a view to evaluating the hypothesis that this feature was borrowed from North Germanic varieties spoken by Norse settlers in medieval Scotland. It is shown that the ‘pitch accent’ system in Gaelic is tightly bound with metrical structure (more precisely syllable count), certainly diachronically, and probably (at least in some varieties) synchronically. Gaelic ‘pitch accent’ is argued to be a plausible internal development, parallel to similar phenomena in other branches of Celtic (specifically in Breton), as well as in Germanic. This conclusion may appear to undermine the contact hypothesis, especially in the absence of reliable written sources; nevertheless, a certain role for Norse-Gaelic contact in the appearance of the pitch accent system cannot be completely excluded
    Notes:
    Submitted version — please refer to the published book for the authoritative version
    Metadata:
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    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Publisher:
    De Gruyter
    Pub. Date:
    2015
    Book Title:
    New trends in Nordic and general linguistics
    Author/Editor:
    Martin Hilpert, Jan-Ola Östman, Christine Mertzlufft, Michael Rießler, Janet Duke
    Page Range:
    28 - 54
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    6 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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