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Syllable reduction and articulation rates in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2011

Nanna Haug Hilton ,
Anja Schüppert  and
Charlotte Gooskens
Nanna Haug Hilton
Affiliation:
University of Groningen, Faculty of Arts, P.O. Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands. n.h.hilton@rug.nl, a.schueppert@rug.nl, c.s.gooskens@rug.nl
Anja Schüppert
Affiliation:
University of Groningen, Faculty of Arts, P.O. Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands. n.h.hilton@rug.nl, a.schueppert@rug.nl, c.s.gooskens@rug.nl
Charlotte Gooskens
Affiliation:
University of Groningen, Faculty of Arts, P.O. Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands. n.h.hilton@rug.nl, a.schueppert@rug.nl, c.s.gooskens@rug.nl
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Abstract

This investigation compares articulation rates of phonological and phonetic syllables in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish to investigate differences in degrees of syllable deletion (reduction) among these three languages. For the investigation two sets of data are used: one consisting of recorded speech from radio news and another consisting of sentences read aloud. The results of the comparative investigation show that in both data sets Danish exhibits a much larger degree of syllable reduction in speech than Norwegian and Swedish. The finding that certain syllable deletion processes take place in Danish but not in Norwegian and Swedish is viewed as typological. The results indicate that Danish words are shorter than their Norwegian and Swedish counterparts. This could be a contributing factor to problems that arise in inter-Scandinavian communication.

Keywords

articulation rateDanishNorwegianSwedishsyllable deletionsyllable reduction
Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 34 , Special Issue 2: The Nordic Languages and Typology , October 2011 , pp. 215 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © Nordic Association of Linguistics 2011

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