A Phantom of a Rule: Icelandic Vowel Shift*

The article deals with Stephen R. Anderson's Icelandic Vowel Shift Rule as an example of the general concept of exchange rule and involving marked vs. unmarked rule orde˚. The evidence adduced from Modern as well as Old Icelandic is reexamined in detail and shown to be in fact nonexistent. The paper ends with a few concluding remarks on the general notions involved.