Getting by difficult pronunciation (Advice Center) Language Learning Forum

Getting by difficult pronunciation
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25 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

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Message 25 of 25

10 May 2011 at 11:55am | IP Logged

ChristopherB wrote:

I can seem to make out some rough kind of rule, namely that if you compare the words 'stege', 'tomte' and 'ande' with 'steg', 'and' and 'tomt', the former are pronounced with the acute accent, and the latter the grave.

It's "stege", "tomte" and "ande" that have the grave accent, but of course, when you don't know which is which, the terminology doesn't help a lot. I've lost count of how many times I've heard people mix them up. It's like black and white to me. Water-proof method (regardless of accent):
Words that rhyme with "grava" (as in "den grava accenten") have grave accent
Words that rhyme with "akuta" (as in "den akuta accenten") have acute accent.

ChristopherB wrote:

This appears to have something to do with the latter words requiring a separate suffix (the definite article) which adds a whole extra syllable, altering the pronunciation, and hence, giving rise to the tone. The former words however, have two syllables already "built in" to the word, the addition of the -n suffix doesn't alter the word, since it is already bisyllabic.

Swedes, does this make any sense??

Yes and no. Short-syllable words has no real tone, and don't really get another when suffixed. Unless you speak English with the "high rising terminal" intonation, John - Johnson should rhyme ("accent-wise") with steg - stegen, and - anden, tomt - tomten.

However, when a grave accent word (e.g. "tomte") becomes the second part of a word (jultomte), that particular part gets the acute accent, and also when an acute accent word (e.g. London) becomes the first part of a word, it gets a slight grave accent (London-bo ("Londoner")). It's just the way it is. The book "Vår fonetiska geografi" has a lot of info about it, so has Olle Kjellin's works on prosody, left melody, right melody, and so on.

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