A simpler view of Danish stød

In this paper, I argue that Danish stød should be analyzed as a separate phonation type, similar to creaky voice, following the phonetic analysis of Fischer-Jørgensen 1989, and not as surface manifestation of an underlying HL tonal pattern (contra Riad 2000). Furthermore, I argue that the distribution of stød needs to be treated in terms of lexical phonology, since it is in fact the morphology which plays a primary rôle in determining its appearance. Previous work has neglected the use of lexical phonology (e.g. Basbøll 2005), which captures the interplay of phonology and morphology better than any other system to date. However, I also believe Optimality Theory has a part to play in the analysis, and it is used to account for the failure of stød to appear in syllables where it would be otherwise predicted by the lexical phonological rules.