Quantity in Old Norse and modern peninsular North Germanic

Abstract This article discusses the transition from a system with contrastive, segmental quantity in Old Norse into the present day system characterizing most Norwegian and Swedish dialects, where stressed syllables are obligatorily bimoraic. Starting with variation within East Norwegian, two intermediate varieties between Old Norse and the modern system are identified, and the four varieties are then related to each other by means of constraint reranking within an Optimality Theory analysis. A full factorial typology based on the four constraints involved is then developed. This renders four... Mehr ...