Syntax vs. phonology: a representational approach to stylistic fronting and verb-second in Icelandic

In the standard ‘double interface’ view of language, expressions are assigned a semantically interpretable syntax and a phonology. The role of phonology is to realise the syntactic computation (up to Spell-Out) in Phonetic Form (PF). This is achieved by pied-piping of phonological features into and within the syntax. In default of being thus determined by the syntax, properties of PF are determined by strictly phonological considerations. Icelandic Stylistic Fronting (SF) presents a challenge to this ‘realisational’ view of phonology, its scope and its relation to syntax. We argue that the SF effect – a distinctive word order at PF – is neither due to a syntactic operation nor explainable in strictly phonological terms. Previous analyses, syntactic and phonological, are considered and rejected (including Holmberg, 2000, in which the syntax is allowed to target just phonological features). We outline an alternative view of the role and scope of phonology: rather than being realisational, phonology has a representational role with respect to the syntactic computation and the (phonology-free) expressions it generates. The wider scope of representational phonology makes possible a simpler, more declarative, account of the SF effect that links it to a (representationally reconstructed) version of the verb-second phenomenon.