Swedish has a contrast between two so-called tonal word accents: accent 1 and accent 2. In central standard Swedish, for example, compound words generally have accent 2 and primary stress on the first element. In contrast, traditional Scanian dialects exhibit both a high occurrence of accent 1 in compounds and dialect geographic variation between accent 2 and second element stress. This dissertation argues in favour of four diachronically oriented hypotheses pertaining to the word accent distribution in compounds with monosyllabic first elements in these dialects: (1) compounds emanating from syntactic juxtapositions have accent 1; (2) compounds formed by way of compounding proper (stem compounds and comparable formations) have accent 2 or second-element stress; (3) compounds of either of these two types do, however, have accent 1 if the first element was originally disyllabic and has lost its posttonic syllable through syncope; (4) West Germanic loanwords have accent 1. This permits the generalisation that postlexical accent 2, which applies generally in compounds in central standard Swedish, for example, only applies in (non-syncopated) compounds proper in Scanian dialects, while in the other categories the word accent follows from the first element. The larger dialect geographical picture in Sweden is discussed, and it is concluded that the system found in Scanian and many other dialects represents the original state of affairs in Scandinavia as a whole, while the central standard Swedish system with general accent 2 in compounds is an innovation. The dissertation also gives a dialect geographical account of second-element stress, which, in agreement with previous research, is found to be primarily a south Scanian but to some degree also a north-west Scanian phenomenon. It is further proposed that Scanian second-element stress originated in an accent-2 curve with the floating prominence tone H (entailing the curve’s F0 maximum) timed with the posttonic syllable, by way of association of the prominence tone to the posttonic syllable. This curve is documented in south-east Scania and is hypothesised to have earlier been spread throughout southern and western Scania.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-218582 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Strandberg, Mathias |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Seminariet för nordisk namnforskning, Uppsala : Institutionen för nordiska språk, Uppsala universitet |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral thesis, monograph, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Skrifter utgivna av Institutionen för nordiska språk vid Uppsala universitet, 0083-4661 ; 88 |
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