Talk:Swedish phonology/Archive 4

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Question concering long I

Hi, can anyone tell me exactly how this (long i) is articulated? I see that it is like "ee" in meet but in Swedish it sounds like it's nasal or something, so could anyone explain it to me? --Sergiusz Szczebrzeszyński ^{|talk to me||what i've done||e|} 22:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

It's a diphthong in Central Swedish that leans towards a schwa. Same as all the long vowels. It's not pronounced the same way all over Sweden, though. Some dialects have different diphthongs and other don't have diphthongs at all.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:20, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I think a nasal pronunciation might be dialectal. I know, for instance, that Swedish has a dialectal variation known as "Viby-i" or "Lidingö-i", where a long i-vowel often gets some kind of buzzing quality. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 15:32, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys :D --Sergiusz Szczebrzeszyński ^{|talk to me||what i've done||e|} 00:39, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Peter Isotalo claims: It's a diphthong in Central Swedish that leans towards a schwa. Yeah when hell freezes to ice. I claim: long i in Swedish is pretty much pronounced like "ee" in "meat". Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 18:11, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The vowel of English meat is itself a diphthong. As the article now says, the long close vowels are followed by their corresponding semivowels (if [β] is to be understood as an approximant corresponding to [ʉ]). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 04:20, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

In my experience, the main difference between long Swedish "I" and [i] in other languages is that Swedes tend to pronounce it more like [ij]. This is also supported by Dansk for Svensktalende, a textbook about Danish geared towards Swedish-speakers, where it tries to explain the main difference between Swedish and Danish "I". Nederbörd (talk) 21:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

My impression is that most Swedes I ever listened to, don't speak a schwa after a long vowel like "e", but instead this sounds like a [ɐ̯]; listening to the Swedish alphabet spoken by native speakers, letters like "B", "C", "D", "E" etc. sound exactly the same as in German words with E plus R, such as "Beer(e)", "zehr(e)", "der", "er". It is clearly more of an "A-like" sound than a real schwa. The same is true for "två", this sound a little like [tvoa] or, in fact, precisely like [tvo.ɐ̯]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.58.202.234 (talk) 13:27, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

[ɐ] is a real schwa. The symbol ⟨ə⟩ can mean a vowel that's precisely mid, as close as near-close or as open as near-open. It's one of the least precise symbols in IPA. BTW, [tvo.ɐ̯] isn't a correct transcription. You probably meant [tvoɐ̯] or [tvoˑɐ̯]. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 14:10, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

/d/ into /r/ or /ɾ/

I feel like I'm blind, as I can't find any mentions of /d/ turning into rhotics in certain words, other than a mention in the article about Dental and alveolar taps and flaps.

Anyway, sentences like "Vad sa du?" often get pronounced (pardon my IPA) /va sɑː rœ/ in colloquial speech, enough to warrant a mention on LearningSwedish.se.

So, eh... what to say about it?

OliviaEljest (talk) 04:17, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Why not phonemic status of the retroflexations?

The retroflexations [ʂ], [ʈ], [ɳ] and [ɖ], ought to be regarded as phonemes (/ʂ/, /ʈ/, /ɳ/ and /ɖ/), since they are crucial (in standard central Swedish as well as most regiolects of Swedish) to tell differences like in the following pairs. I.e. there is true phonemic splitting in the pairs below:

Some oppostions involving /ɳ/

vara /`vɑːra/ ('be'), varna /`vɑːɳa/ ('warn', 'tip off'), vana (/`vɑːna/) ('habit')

Tor /tuːr/ (boy's name), torn /tuːɳ/ ('rook', 'tower'), ton /tuːn/ ('tone')

kor /kuːr/ ('cow's'), korn /kuːɳ/ ('barley'; 'grain'), kon /kuːn/ ('cone')

hor /tuːr/ ('prostitution'), horn /huːɳ/ ('antler'), hon /huːn/ ('the sink')

Some oppostions involving /ʂ/

far /fɑːr/ ('father'), fars /fɑːʂ/ ('father's'), fas /fɑːs/ ('phase')

mor /muːr/ ('mother'), mors /muːʂ/ ('mother'), mos /muːs/ ('mashed potatoes')

kor /kuːr/ ('cows'), kors /kuːʂ/ ('cows'), kos /muːs/ ('cow's')

Some oppostions involving /ɖ/ and /ʈ/

mor /muːr/ ('mother'), mord /muːɖ/ ('murther'), mod /muːd/ ('courage')

torr /tɔrː/ ('dry'), torrt /tɔʈː/ ('dry'), Tott /tɔtː/ (an old cartoon figure 'Knoll och Tott')

vår /voːr/ ('our'), vårt /voːʈ/ ('our'), våt /voːt/ ('wet')

våra /`voːra/ ('our' pl.), vårta /`voːʈa/ ('wart'), våta /`voːta/ ('wet' pl.)

bor /buːr/ ('live', 'reside'), bord /buːɖ/ ('table'), bod /buːd/ ('shed')

Failing to distinguish mod ('courage') from mord ('murther'), unequivocally changes the meaning of a message... All the examples above show that there is true phonemic opposition between /ʂ/, /ʈ/, /ɳ/, /ɖ/ and the corresponding consonants, respectively. Also, it shows that the phonemic oppositions are not a marginal phenomenon, but a frequently recurring one.

Also, if comparing with the treatment of English some consonant clusters are always treated as individual phonemes (/tʃ/ and /dʒ/) despite that the difference between /t/ + /ʃ/ vs. /tʃ/ is arguable much smaller than in Swedish between /s/ and /ʂ/ and is not truly phonemic in i meaning-splitting sense.

Furthermore, the phonemic status of /ʂ/ is strengthened by the fact that in standard central Swedish (and actually in all of Sweden except the most southern provinces), dusch /dɵʂ/ ('shower') rhymes with kurs /kɵʂ/ ('course').

Sylvaticum (talk) 13:17, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Moreover, the distinction between /n/ /ŋ/ and /g/ works in a highly similar way: tugga /`tɵga/ ('chew'), tunga /`tɵŋa/ ('tongue'), tunna /`tɵna/ ('barrel'). Since /ŋ/ is regarded as a distinct phoneme, /ʂ/, /ʈ/, /ɳ/ and /ɖ/ ought to be regarded as that as well. Sylvaticum (talk) 14:07, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

There are many reasons, but one of them is that not all Standard Swedish speakers realize the retroflex consonants as such, pronouncing them instead as /r/ + the affected consonant. In those cases, the pronunciation of /r/ is highly variable - this is why, for example, the table does not indicate [ʐ] as a phoneme despite being the pronunciation of /r/ in central Sweden because not all Swedish speakers pronounce /r/ as [ʐ], and that is so mentioned in the article. Likewise, while it's possible to give [ʂ] phonemic status because it occurs outside of the /r/+/s/ position, but that is already taken care of within the article as one of the "light" sounds that can occur for /ɧ/; as a result, [ʂ] is an allophone of two separate consonants. The point is that in the analysis backed up (for now - there's still other areas where citations are needed) by academic literature and professional linguists who have analyzed Swedish and has been chosen for the article, the retroflex consonants are allophones of existing consonants (in this case, a rhotic consonant followed by a coronal [dental/alveolar] consonant), which for those speakers who pronounce it are predictable from context and only occur if /r/ is also alveolar (and even then not in all areas, as Standard Swedish in Finland demonstrates, as well as the area around Gothenburg where there are no retroflexes but some of its effects remain; e.g. in your [ʈ]/[ɖ] examples the latter two of each pair are merged with [t]/[d] but are distinguishable in context despite apparent homonymity at first glance), and this is so mentioned in the article under the "Sonorants" section as occurring in certain areas of the Swedish-speaking world and in certain positions - a position also taken in the Norwegian phonology article, where Urban East Norwegian and some Norwegian regional varieties also possess retroflexes in similar contexts as Standard Swedish. The best example of that in English is not the affricates, but the /t/-/d/ merger in North America to a flapped [ɾ] (and even then not it all areas of North America) when intervocalic; its occurrence does not create a phoneme */ɾ/ in opposition to /r/ [ɻʷ] due to a series of complex factors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.10.82.67 (talk) 15:23, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

In addition to previous discussion on this talk page, both above this and in archive, there's also an overview of Swedish phonology published in 2014 by Tomas Riad which mentions the retroflexes, not promoting them to phonemes but instead mentions it as part of a sandhi rule on pp. 73-79. Riad also does the opposite of the consensus elsewhere, by promoting /ʂ/ as a phoneme and treats the various allophones of [ɧ] within that phoneme. Note, however that [ʂ] from /r/+/s/ is treated as a sandhi-related allophone - something already mentioned in the article with different source citations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.10.82.67 (talk) 16:10, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

He doesn't assign [ʂ]-the-retroflex-rs a phonemic status. ⟨ʂ⟩ is his transcription of what is (perhaps) more commonly written with ⟨ɧ⟩ in the literature. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:00, 22 April 2020 (UTC)