On Unit Accentuation in Danish—and the Distinction Between Deep and Surface Phonology

Abstract

Abstract It is no coincidence that the first part of the title of this paper is strongly reminiscent of that of a paper read by L. Hjelmslev before the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen twenty-five years ago (Hjelmslev 1957). In spite of obvious affinities to ‘metrical phonology’ the present paper is not directly coupled to the work of the MIT school (some recent advances in ‘lexical phonology’, which are crucially relevant to issues raised in this paper, could not be considered before completion of the manuscript). Rather,I am trying to summarize and follow up my previous work on the hierarchical nature of Danish stress, with special emphasis on certain issues which have vexed me since I was exposed to Hjelmslev’s and Eli Fischer-Jørgensen’s views on prosodic patterning in the late 1950s (also cf. Fischer-Jørgensen 1961). At the same time, of course,I am drawing heavily on theoretical advances within generative phonology. In fact, the general setting within which I am dealing with stress is generative, but I have preferred to stick to fairly loose formulations and a minimum of formal apparatus in agreement with my earlier work. I hope that the presentation is sufficiently explicit to make my points clear, though.