Swedish phonology
has a large vowel inventory, with nine vowels distinguished in quality and to some degree in quantity, making 18 vowel phonemes in most dialects. Another notable feature is the pitch accent, a development which it shares with Norwegian. Swedish pronunciation of most consonants is similar to that of other Germanic languages.
There are 18 consonant phonemes, of which and show considerable variation depending on both social and dialectal context.
Finland Swedish has a slightly different phonology.
Vowels
Generalities
Swedish has nine vowels that, as in many other Germanic languages, exist in pairs of long and short versions. The length covaries with the quality of the vowels, as shown in the table below, with short variants being more centered and lax. The length is generally viewed as the primary distinction, with quality being secondary. No short vowels appear in open stressed syllables. The front vowels appear in rounded-unrounded pairs: –, –, – and –.There is some variation in the interpretations of vowel length's phonemicity., for example, treats vowel quantity as its own separate phoneme so that long and short vowels are allophones of a single vowel phoneme. have been suggested to be underspecified for backness to explain the difference with their short counterparts.
- Rounded vowels have two types of rounding:
- *,, and are compressed:,, and
- *,, and its pre- allophone, and its pre- allophone, and are protruded:,,,,,, and.
- Close vowels:
- * In Central Standard Swedish, are very peripheral and have been reported to be fully close in contemporaneous Stockholm speech, i.e. cardinal,.
- * In Central Standard Swedish, are centralised to various degree and may be accompanied by simultaneous friction, this buzzing effect may be becoming an important auditory clue. In fact they are so centralised in Stockholm that condiders none of both front in the variety.
- * found the roundedness of an appropriate question for further research, from her data on Stockholm speakers. In Göteborg a merger of and has been reported for younger speakers.
- * Central Standard Swedish is a near-close near-front compressed vowel. In other dialects, may be central.
- Mid vowels:
- * are mid. In contemporary Stockholm speech, this is different, the main allophone of: is open-mid and near close.
- * is open-mid. In contemporary Stockholm speech, the main allophone is close-mid:.
- Open vowels:
- * has been variously described as central and front.
- * In Central Standard Swedish, long is weakly rounded, on par in openness with lowered or even closer. This also occurs in Lund. The rounding is stronger in Gothenburg and weaker in most North Swedish dialects.
In many central and eastern areas, the contrast between short and is lost. The loss of this contrast has the effect that hetta and hätta are pronounced the same. Since the 1700, Stockholm accents began undergoing the same merger in the long system; with pairs as heda and häda, since reversed.
In Central Standard Swedish, unstressed is slightly retracted, but is still a front vowel rather than central. However, the latter pronunciation is commonly found in Southern Swedish. Therefore, begå 'to commit' is pronounced in Central Standard Swedish and in Southern Swedish. Before, southerners may use a back vowel. In Central Standard Swedish, a true acoustic schwa can be heard in the voiced release of voiced consonnant, as in e.g. bädd 'bed'.
In some pronunciations, traditionally characteristic of the varieties spoken around Gothenburg and in Östergötland, but today more common e.g. in Stockholm and especially in younger speakers, and merge, most commonly into . Words like fördömande and fördummande are then often pronounced similarly or identically, as.
Uterance finally, vowels are progresively devoiced. This is illustrated by reasearchers of the 80' focusing on the so called nolla-hallon effect; the word nolla played backward is unmistakenably perceived as hallon.
Pre- allophones
, , and are lowered to,, and, respectively, when preceding.Older accounts extend the context to pre- and less often post-.
Another account of varieties lowering shows to be centralised i.e., ; and to as open as i.e..
Lowering of
Younger speakers have lower realisations of, so that läsa and köpa are pronounced and instead of older standard and. These speakers often also pronounce pre-rhotic and even lower, i.e. and. This is especially true for the long allophone.This lowered pronunciation has spread to an unknown extent onto the country and has been reported from Lund to Stockholm.
suggests the contrast between and their pre- allophone to be mainly carried by formant dynamic and onsets, the qualities gliding more towards the main allophone for pre-s. She also considers reasonable to assume one single allophone due to their significant overlap. Also, is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the long.
This lowering phenomenon probably has phonemic motivations, as, combined with other minor shifts, it makes Swedish go from a language with 4 different height distinction to 3. Here is a synthesis of some provisory anaylses.
- groups in one central category, according to their realisation.
Diphthongisation
Patterns of diphthongs of long vowels occur in three major dialect groups.In Central Standard Swedish:
- the high vowels,, and are realized as narrow closing diphthongs with fully close ending points:. Engstrand transcribes these diphthongs with semivowels :. Elsewhere in the article, the broad transcription is used.
- * and in particular, have a centralising tendency. Also is more strongly closing, greatly contributing to its diphthongal character.
- *Diphthongisation of is reported in Stockholm vernacular at the beginning of the 20th century.
- the mid vowels and are often realized as diphthongs, alternatively described as centering or opening. They could be transcribed,. Elsewhere in the article, the broad transcription is used.
- * and have also been reported to diphthongise, but recent accounts failed to certify this for contemporary accents, making them pattern, for the most part, with. Narrowly, or lowered.
- * Diphthongisation in a variety close to what would become the standard is first reported in Södertörn for all long vowels in the 17th century and in the Central Standard for mid vowels at the beginning of the 20th century.
The third type of distinctive diphthongs occur in the dialects of Gotland. The pattern of diphthongs is more complex than those of southern and eastern Sweden;, and tend to rise while and fall;,, and are not diphthongized at all.
Consonants
The table below shows the Swedish consonant phonemes in spoken Standard Swedish.are dental, but can be either dental or alveolar. If is alveolar, then is also alveolar. Dental realization of is the predominant one in Central Standard Swedish.
Uterance finally, voiced obstruents are followed by vocalic release itself smoothing out into a voiceless perdiod. This is illustrated by another backward speech example where the word viv and its definite form vivet are both heard as the nonce word heviv.
Stops
Medial lenis stops can turn into fricatives or approximants in casual speech.Initial fortis stops are aspirated in stressed position, but unaspirated when preceded by within the same morpheme. In Finland Swedish, aspiration does not occur and initial lenis stops are usually voiced throughout. Word-medial lenis stops are sometimes voiceless in Finland, a likely influence from Finnish.
Plosives are often fricated near fricatives.
Preaspiration of medial and final fortis stops, including the devoicing of preceding sonorants, is common, though its length and normativity varies from dialect to dialect, being optional in Central Standard Swedish but obligatory in, for example, the Swedish dialects of Gräsö, Vemdalen and Arjeplog. In Gräsö, preaspiration is blocked in certain environments, while it is a general feature of fortis medial consonants in Central Standard Swedish. When not preaspirated, medial and final fortis stops are simply unaspirated. In clusters of fortis stops, the second "presonorant" stop is unaspirated and the former patterns with other medial final stops.
The phonetic attributes of preaspiration also vary. In the Swedish of Stockholm, preaspiration is often realized as a fricative subject to the character of surrounding vowels or consonants so that it may be labial, velar, or dental; it may also surface as extra length of the preceding vowel. In the province of Härjedalen, though, it resembles or. The duration of preaspiration is highest in the dialects of Vemdalen and Arjeplog. Helgason notes that preaspiration is longer after short vowels, in lexically stressed syllables, as well as in pre-pausal position.
Fricatives
is dental in Central Standard Swedish, but retracted alveolar in Blekinge, Bohuslän, Halland and Scania.The Swedish fricatives and are often considered to be the most difficult aspects of Swedish pronunciation for foreign students. The combination of occasionally similar and rather unusual sounds as well as the large variety of partly overlapping allophones of often presents difficulties for non-natives in telling the two apart. The existence of a third sibilant in the form of tends to confuse matters even more, and in some cases realizations that are labiodental can also be confused with. The historic palatized kj and tj sound, is an affricate or in Finland Swedish.
The Swedish phoneme and its alleged coarticulation is a difficult and complex issue debated amongst phoneticians. Though the acoustic properties of its allophones are fairly similar, the realizations can vary considerably according to geography, age, gender as well as social context and are notoriously difficult to describe and transcribe accurately. Most common are various sh-like sounds, with occurring mainly in northern Sweden and in Finland. A voiceless uvular fricative,, can sometimes be used in the varieties influenced by major immigrant languages like Arabic and Kurdish. The different realizations can be divided roughly into the following categories:
- "Dark sounds" –, commonly used in the Southern Standard Swedish. Some of the varieties specific, but not exclusive, to areas with a larger immigrant population that commonly realizes the phoneme as a voiceless uvular fricative.
- "Light sounds" –, used in the northern varieties and, and in Finland Swedish.
- Combination of "light" and "dark" – darker sounds are used as morpheme initials preceding stressed vowels, while the lighter sounds are used before unstressed vowels and at the end of morphemes.
Utterance initially, is voiced and gets so progressively, as opposed to vowel onsets which aprubtly start the buzzing. Also the aspiration noise is not an important auditory cue to its presence.
Sonorants
has distinct variations in Standard Swedish. For most speakers, the realization as an alveolar trill occurs only in contexts where emphatic stress is used. In Central Swedish, it is often pronounced as a fricative or approximant, which is especially frequent in weakly articulated positions such as word-finally and somewhat less frequent in stressed syllable onsets, in particular after other consonants. It may also be an apico-alveolar tap. One of the most distinct features of the southern varieties is the uvular realization of, which may be a trill, a fricative or an approximant. In Finland, is usually an apical trill, and may be an approximant postvocalically.Variations of are not as common, though some phonetic variation exists, such as a retroflex flap that exists as an allophone in proximity to a labial or velar consonant or after most long vowels, the same thing happens for.
In casual speech, the nasals tend to assimilate to the place of articulation of a following obstruent.
and are pronounced with weak friction and function phonotactically with the sonorants.
Retroflexion
In most varieties of Swedish that use an alveolar , the combination of with coronal consonants produces retroflex consonant realizations, a recursive sandhi process called "retroflexion". The process of retroflexion is not limited to just one coronal and applies to the whole cluster. The combination of and does not uniformly cause retroflexion, so that it may also be pronounced with two separate consonants, and even, occasionally in a few words and expressions, as a mere.In Gothenburg and neighbouring areas the retroflex consonants are substituted by alveolar ones, with their effects still remaining. However, does not become but instead.
As the adjacent table shows, this process is not limited by word boundaries, though there is still some sensitivity to the type of boundary between the and the dental in that retroflexion is less likely with boundaries higher up in the prosodic hierarchy. In the southern varieties, which use a uvular, retroflex realizations do not occur. An spelled usually will not trigger retroflexion. Retroflexion also does not usually occur in Finland.
Prosody
Stress
In Swedish, stress is not fixed. Primary stress can fall on one of the last three syllables in a word’s stem. This can lead to surface contrasts based solely on difference in position of stress:- formel 'formula'
- formell 'formal'
Pitch accents
Stressed syllables carry one of two different tones, often described as pitch accents, or tonal word accents. They are called acute and grave accent, accent 1 and accent 2. The actual realization of these two tones varies from dialect to dialect. In the central Swedish dialect of Stockholm, accent 1 is characterized by a low tone at the beginning of the stressed syllable and accent 2 by a high tone at the beginning of the stressed syllable. When the word is in a prominent/focused position, a high tone often occurs following the word accent. In accent 2 words, this results in two high tones within the word, hence the term "two-peaked" for this dialect. In southern Swedish, a "one-peaked" dialect, accent 1 is realized as a high tone at the beginning of the stressed syllable and accent 2, by a low tone.Generally, the grave accent is characterized by a later timing of the word accent pattern as compared with the acute accent.
The phonemicity of this tonal system is demonstrated in the nearly 300 pairs of two-syllable words differentiated only by their use of either grave or acute accent. Outside of these pairs, the main tendency for tone is that the acute accent appears in monosyllables while the grave accent appears in polysyllabic words. Polysyllabic forms resulting from declension or derivation also tend to have a grave accent except when it is the definite article that is added. This tonal distinction has been present in Scandinavian dialects at least since Old Norse though a greater number of polysyllables now have an acute accent. These are mostly words that were monosyllabic in Old Norse, but have subsequently become disyllabic, as have many loanwords. For example, Old Norse kømr has become kommer in Swedish.
The distinction can be shown with the minimal pair anden 'the mallard' and anden 'the spirit'.
- "Acute" accent : 'the mallard'
- "Grave" accent : 'the spirit'
- Grave-accent trisyllable: flickorna 'the girls'
In most Finland-Swedish varieties, however, the distinction between grave and acute accent is missing.
A reasonably complete list of uncontroversial so-called minimal pairs can be seen below. The two words in each pair are distinguished solely by having different tone. In those cases where both words are nouns it would have been possible to list the genitive forms of the words as well, thereby creating another word pair, but this has been avoided. A few word pairs where one of the words is a plural form with the suffix -or have been included. This is due to the fact that many Swedish-speakers in all parts of Sweden pronounce the suffix -or the same way as -er.
| Translation acute | Acute accent | Grave accent | Translation grave |
| stern | akter | akter | acts |
| the elm | almen | allmän | public, general |
| the As | A:na | ana | suspect |
| the mallard | anden | anden | the spirit |
| the reverse gear, the crate | backen | backen | the slope |
| the ball | balen | balen | the nest |
| the bulb | ballen | ballen | the dick |
| the Bs | B:na | bena | parting |
| binds | binder | bindor | sanitary towels |
| the piece | biten | biten | bitten |
| the book | boken | boken | overripe, spoilt |
| the nests | bona | bona | polish |
| the nests' | bonas | bonas | be polished |
| the bristles | borsten | borsten | the brush, the broom |
| the brace | brassen | brassen | the Brazilian |
| the letters | breven | brevvän | pen pal |
| breaks | brister | brister | flaws |
| the well | brunnen | brunnen | burnt |
| the edges of forests | brynen | brynen | whetstones |
| the edge of a forest | brynet | brynet | the whetstone |
| the cage | buren | buren | carried |
| the pranks | busen | busen | the hooligan |
| the trolling spoons | dragen | dragen | drawn, tipsy |
| the draught, the trolling spoon | draget | draget | drawn |
| the speed, the energy | drivet | drivet | drifted, driven |
| the Es | E:na | ena | unite, unify |
| male name | Enar | enar | junipers |
| the falls | fallen | fallen | fallen |
| the fall | fallet | fallet | fallen |
| fastens | fäster | fester | parties |
| the fish | fisken | fisken | acts of fishing |
| the Fs | F:en | FN | The UN |
| the phone | fonen | fånen | the idiot |
| the armfuls | fången | fången | the prisoner |
| the armful | fånget | fånget | caught |
| the rug | fällen | fällen | places where trees have been felled |
| fells, cuts down | fäller | fällor | traps |
| the party, the feast | festen | fästen | places where something has been attached |
| the bow | fören | fören | conditions of the ground for travelling |
| towards the bow | förut | förut | before, earlier |
| marries | gifter | gifter | poisons |
| the poison | giftet | giftet | the marriage |
| the Js | J:na | gina | tackle, take a shortcut |
| the deal | given | given | given |
| the candles | ljusen | gjusen | the osprey |
| the griffin | gripen | gripen | grabbed, gripped |
| the walkway | gången | gången | gone |
| the heath | heden | heden | heathen |
| has the time to do something | hinner | hinnor | coatings |
| the cuts | huggen | huggen | chopped |
| the directions | hållen | hållen | held |
| the direction | hållet | hållet | held |
| the Hs | H:na | håna | mock, taunt |
| higher | högre | högre | the man to the right |
| the ide | iden | iden | bears' dens for hibernation |
| the Is | I:na | Ina | female name |
| ahead of, in front of | inför | inför | introduces, introduce |
| the sounds | ljuden | juden | the Jew |
| Japanese syllabary | kana | kana | slide |
| the carat | karaten | karaten | the karate |
| the cat | katten | katten | a profanity |
| the bang | knallen | knallen | the small hill, the pedlar |
| the knot | knuten | knuten | tied |
| the bowler hat | kubben | kubben | the chopping block |
| the litter | kullen | kullen | the hill |
| the corps | kåren | kåren | the breeze |
| the lichen | laven | laven | the headframe |
| leads | leder | leder | joints |
| the military service | lumpen | lumpen | contemptible, lousy |
| the moth | malen | malen | ground, milled |
| the milk | mjölken | mjölken | the fish seed |
| the courage | modet | modet | the fashion |
| the mop | moppen | moppen | the moped |
| the names | namnen | namnen | the namesake |
| the norm | normen | norrmän | Norwegians |
| the tack | nubben | nubben | the shot |
| pinches | nyper | nypor | Grips made with the thumb against one or more of the other fingers |
| name of a Norse God | Oden | oden | odes |
| the mite | oret | orätt | injustice |
| the rabble | packen | packen | the bale |
| clown | pajas | pajas | be destroyed |
| panther | panter | panter | deposits |
| Persians | perser | pärser | ordeals |
| Poland | Polen | pålen | the pole |
| pollen | pollen | pållen | the horsey |
| radar | radar | radar | present tense of 'rada', as in 'rada upp' |
| grid | raster | raster | breaks |
| rule | regel | regel | latch |
| travels | reser | resor | journeys, trips |
| the melee, the fighting | rivet | rivet | torn |
| cylinder that rotates and is used for painting | roller | roller | roles |
| diamonds | ruter | rutor | squares, panes |
| the route | rutten | rutten | rotten |
| the rye | rågen | rågen | the overmeasure |
| the nymphs | råna | råna | rob |
| the horizontal bars | räcken | räcken | railings |
| the horizontal bar | räcket | räcket | the railing |
| runs | ränner | rännor | chutes |
| sabbath | sabbat | sabbat | destroyed, sabotaged |
| cedar | ceder | seder | customs |
| the Cs | C:na | sena | late, sinew |
| cider | cider | sidor | pages |
| the view | sikten | sikten | sights |
| the barks | skallen | skallen | the skull |
| the spoon | skeden | skeden | stages |
| the shift | skiftet | skiftet | the change |
| the shifts | skiften | skiften | changes |
| the ejaculations | skjuten | skjuten | shot |
| the speed, the ejaculation | skjutet | skjutet | shot |
| the shots | skotten | skotten | the Scotsman |
| the shower | skuren | skuren | cut |
| the gunner | skytten | skytten | acts of shooting |
| the battles, the hits | slagen | slagen | beaten |
| the battle, the hit | slaget | slaget | beaten |
| the toil | slitet | slitet | worn |
| the ends | sluten | sluten | closed |
| the end | slutet | slutet | closed |
| the family | släkten | släkten | genera |
| the cop | snuten | snuten | past participle of 'snyta' |
| the zoos | zoona | sona | expiate |
| the stocks | spaden | spaden | the spade |
| the spas | spana | spana | watch, observe, search |
| bursts, cracks | spricker | sprickor | cracks |
| the steps | stegen | stegen | the ladder |
| fights | strider | strider | fights, battles |
| the moving patches/bands | stråken | stråken | the bow |
| the stubble | stubben | stubben | the tree stump |
| the racks | ställen | ställen | places |
| the rack | stället | stället | the place |
| the sucking device | sugen | sugen | sucked, in the mood for something |
| the urge | suget | suget | sucked, in the mood for something |
| the seed, the grain | säden | säden | things intended for sowing |
| the cell | cellen | sällen | the brute |
| the grips | tagen | tagen | taken |
| the grip | taget | taget | taken |
| the tank | tanken | tanken | the thought |
| toner | toner | toner | tones |
| the trot | traven | traven | the pile, the stack |
| the plot | tomten | tomten | Santa Claus, the gnome |
| the inch | tummen | tummen | the thumb |
| sign | tecken | täcken | bed covers |
| the point, the cusp | udden | udden | the headland |
| uphill | uppför | uppför | present tense or imperative of 'uppföra' |
| downhill | utför | utför | present tense or imperative of 'utföra' |
| the hole in the ice | vaken | vaken | awake |
| the whale | valen | valen | stiff, numb |
| the shrouds | vanten | vanten | the mitten |
| the vase | vasen | vasen | the bundle of brushwood |
| the bay | viken | viken | folded |
| makes a whistling sound | viner | viner | wines |
| the knobs | vreden | vreden | the rage, the wrath |
| the host/the world | värden/världen | värden | values |
| male name | Oskar | åskar | present tense of 'åska' |
| the gravel | ören | ören | pennies |
| the gravel | öret | öret | the penny |
Note that karaten/karaten is the only pair with more than two syllables. The word pair länder and länder could have been included, but this one is controversial. For those speakers who have grave accent in the plural of länd, the definite plural forms will also constitute a three-syllable minimal pair: länderna vs. länderna. Although examples with more than two syllables are very few in Standard Swedish, it is possible to find other three-syllable pairs in regional dialects, such as Värmländska: hunnera vs. hunnera, ändera/ännera vs. ändera/ännera, etc.
Prosody in Swedish often varies substantially between different dialects including the spoken varieties of Standard Swedish. As in most languages, stress can be applied to emphasize certain words in a sentence. To some degree prosody may indicate questions, although less so than in English.
Phonotactics
At a minimum, a stressed syllable must consist of either a long vowel or a short vowel and a long consonant. Like many other Germanic languages, Swedish has a tendency for closed syllables with a relatively large number of consonant clusters in initial as well as final position. Though not as complex as that of most Slavic languages, examples of up to 7 consecutive consonants can occur when adding Swedish inflections to some foreign loanwords or names, and especially when combined with the tendency of Swedish to make long compound nouns. The syllable structure of Swedish can therefore be described with the following formula:This means that a Swedish one-syllable morpheme can have up to three consonants preceding the vowel that forms the nucleus of the syllable, and three consonants following it. Examples: skrämts or sprängts . All but one of the consonant phonemes,, can occur at the beginning of a morpheme, though there are only 6 possible three-consonant combinations, all of which begin with, and a total of 31 initial two-consonant combinations. All consonants except for and can occur finally, and the total number of possible final two-consonant clusters is 62.
In some cases this can result in very complex combinations, such as in västkustskt, consisting of västkust with the adjective suffix -sk and the neuter suffix -t.
Central Standard Swedish and most other Swedish dialects feature a rare "complementary quantity" feature wherein a phonologically short consonant follows a long vowel and a long consonant follows a short vowel; this is true only for stressed syllables and all segments are short in unstressed syllables. This arose from the historical shift away from a system with a four-way contrast inherited from Proto-Germanic to a three-way one, and finally the present two-way one; certain Swedish dialects have not undergone these shifts and exhibit one of the other two phonotactic systems instead. In literature on Swedish phonology, there are a number of ways to transcribe complementary relationship, including:
- A length mark for either the vowel or the consonant
- Gemination of the consonant
- Diphthongisation of the vowel
- The position of the stress marker - a non-IPA notation as the stress mark does not precede the stressed syllable in this case
Swedish allows a rare type of cluster combining linquids, a consonantal jod and another consonnant. Finally this may be simplified by vocalisation or with a svarabhakti vowel.