Modern Icelandic preaspiration from the phonological point of view

Abstract

The paper deals with the phonology of modern Icelandic preaspiration. The rule that produces the non-lexicalised cases                                                                                                                                                      of preaspiration before what is written as p, t, k + l, n  is different for hardmadi and linmeli. The hard medi role generates preaspiration before an aspirated plosive + /1, n/. (The aspiration of the plosive is obliterated by a later deaspiration rule.) The linmaeli rule generates preaspiration before plosive + /l, n/ just in case there is at least one such form in the inflexional paradigm of the word-form to which the rule is to apply containing a long vowel immediately followed by a plosive (where the vowel and the plosive are those mentioned in the structural description of the preaspiration rule).