1. Standard East Norwegian and Central Swedish: A comparison
1.1. Similarities
The key correspondence of word accent distribution in Standard East Norwegian and Central Swedish is that Accent 1 dominates in both languages. Rules applying to Standard East Norwegian simplex words also apply to Central Swedish (cf. Chapter 3, (4)).64 The differences emerge in complex constructions consisting of two prosodic words, which we consider below in section 1.2. First, we list a few lexically specified words in Central Swedish, and include a revised version of our list of lexical specified words for Standard East Norwegian from Chapter 3 for comparison.
64. For a more detailed account of the analysis of accent assignment in Central Swedish see Lahiri, Wetterlin & Jönsson-Steiner (2005a).
(1) Abstract lexical accent marking in Central Swedish Lexically specified words
Foreign nouns: ta+xi ‘taxi’, ba+ndy ‘bandy’, ta+lang ‘talent’, la+vendel ‘lavender’, pe+rgola ‘pergola, arbor’, etc.
Names of places: Be+rgen, Lo+ndon, Gre+kland, Po+rtugal, Um+eå, Ös+tersund, etc.
Days of the week: m+åndag ‘Monday’, fre+dag ‘Friday’, lör+dag ‘Saturday’, etc.
Names of berries: björ+nbär ‘blackberry’, b+låbär ‘blueberry’, kör+sbär ‘cherry’, etc.65
(2) Abstract lexical accent marking in Standard East Norwegian Lexically specified words
Foreign nouns: ba+ll ‘dance’, fe+st ‘celebration’, fri+ ‘free’, a+ksje ‘stock’,
v+illa ‘villa’, ta+lent ‘talent’, la+vendel ‘lavender’, t+iger ‘tiger’, etc.
Names of places: Be+rgen, Lo+ndon, He+llas‘Greece’, Po+rtugal, etc.
Days of the week: ma+ndag ‘Monday’, fre+dag ‘Friday’, lø+rdag ‘Saturday’, etc.
Names of berries: bjø+rnebær ‘blackberry’, blåbæ+r ‘blueberry’, kir+sebær ‘cherry, etc.
The major difference in these two sets of words for Standard East Norwegian and Central Swedish are the lexically specified monosyllables ba+ll ‘dance’, fe+st ‘celebration’, fri+ ‘free’. We now included these lexically specified monosyllables in the list for Standard East Norwegian because we saw in Chapter 4 that these too can be lexically specified. This does not apply to Central Swedish. Otherwise, the majority of simplex words correspond in accent and lexical specification. Even the accent of the days of the week, and many of the names of berries coincide in both Norwegian and Swedish, despite their compound-like appearance. Could this be a new development in Central Swedish-Accent-1 compounds? Recall that all compounds in Central Swedish have Accent 2. Or are these perhaps the small traces leftover from an earlier system where Accent-1 compounds were still widespread in all Scandinavian tonal dialects?
Another possibility is that these words no longer have compound status for Central Swedish or Standard East Norwegian speakers.
We leave these questions open for the moment, and turn to the next set of words in which accent distribution corresponds in both languages, i.e., derivations with unstressed prefixes.
65. In Swedish only words containing bär as second constituent are lexically specified, all other berries are Accent 2: 'jordgubbar2 ‘strawberry’, 'lingon2 ‘cranberry’, 'hallon2 ‘raspberry’. The Svenska Uttalsorboken also lists some Accent 2 variants for the lexically specified berry words as well.
We saw in Chapter 3 (cf. (45)) that these derivations have Accent 1 in both Swedish and Norwegian. We repeat the examples below.
(3) Unstressed prefixes in Swedish and Norwegian
Swedish Norwegian Gloss
Prefix + INF INFINITIVE Prefix + INF INFINITIVE (PREFIX + INF/ INF) be'hålla1 'hålla2 be'holde1 'holde2 to keep/ hold
be'visa1 'visa2 be'vise1 'vise2 to prove/ show
be'tänka1 'tänka2 be'tenke1 'tenke2 to consider/ think för'ankra1 'ankra2 for'ankre1 'ankre2 to anchor/ anchor för'bättra1 'bättra2 for'bedre1 'bedre2 to improve/ better
All simplex verbs in the infinitive very systematically have Accent 2 in both Swedish and Norwegian, as can be seen in the second and fourth columns. It is the unstressed prefixes, all of which are borrowed, that disturb this once predominantly Accent-2 pattern, as we see in columns 1 and 3. These prefixed infinitives have Accent 1. More variation was brought into the set of infinitive verbs when the stress-bearing verbal suffix {-er} came into the language, as can be seen in the following list.
(4) Stressed verbal suffix {-er}VERB in Swedish and Norwegian
Swedish Norwegian Gloss Source
analy'sera1 analy'sere1 to analyse German/ French
fun'dera1 fun'dere1 to found Latin
dele'gera1 dele'gere1 to delegate Latin
legiti'mera1 legiti'mere1 to legitimate German/ French publi'cera1 publi'sere1 to publicise Latin
The examples in (4) show a second set of Accent-1 infinitives – all of which clearly have Latin origins. However, it is often difficult to reconstruct exactly how words come into a language. According to the online editions of the preeminent Swedish and Norwegian dictionaries, i.e., Svenska Akademiens ordbok and the Bokmålsordboka, these words originally stem from Latin but most likely were borrowed through, or modelled on words from West Germanic languages or French. In any case, these two sets of affixed infinitives in (3) and (4) have Accent 1 in both Central Swedish and Standard East Norwegian.
The set of infinitive verbs with unstressed prefixes, as well as the infinitive verbs with the verbal suffix {-er}VERB, could potentially have Accent 2, since they have penultimate stress.
Penultimate stress infers that a possible Accent-2 environment exists, since a disyllabic trochee is available. There are, after all, other loan words – simplex and complex – with the same stress pattern that have Accent 2, for example, the following loans in Norwegian, e.g. bri'gade2
‘brigade’, pa'rade2 ‘parade’, prin'sesse2 ‘princess’. Yet, all loans containing the verbal suffix {-er}VERB persistently have Accent 1 and, as we argue later, always have had Accent 1.
Our claim, as we elucidated in Chapter 3, is that borrowed unstressed prefixes as in (3), and the borrowed stressed suffix {-er}VERB in (4) are lexically specified for bearing Accent 1. As we see here, this applies to Standard East Norwegian as well as Central Swedish. Lexical accent will also dominate in derivations of these words, which are consequently Accent 1 as well.
Below we list some derivations in both Swedish and Norwegian to support our claim.
(5) Deverbal nouns with unstressed prefixes {be-+},{för-+/for-+} or with {-'e+r}VERB
Swedish Norwegian Gloss
Verb Noun Verb Noun (VERB/ NOUN)
be'hållare1 be'holder1 to keep/container / be'hålla1
be'hållning1
be'holde1
be'holdning1 balance (S) inventory (N) för'ankra1 förankring1 for'ankre1 for'ankring1 to anchor/anchorage för'bättra1 för'bättring1 for'bedre1 for'bedring1 to improve/betterment fun'dera1 fun'dering1 fun'dere1 fun'dering1 to found/consideration regi'strera1 regi'strering1 regi'strere1 regi'strering1 to register/registration fil'trera1 fil'trering1 fil'trere1 fil'trering1 to filter/filtering
Columns 2 and 4 here in (5) evidence that the addition of a nominalizing suffix {-ing} does not change or cancel the lexical accent of the suffix {-e+r}VERB, or of the unstressed prefixes.
These derived nouns all have Accent 1 in both Central Swedish and Standard East Norwegian.
There is one last area of correspondence in Central Swedish and Standard East Norwegian prefixed verbs, namely a handful of native stressed prefixes that we already mentioned in Chapter 3 (cf. section 3.1.2). The examples containing native prefixes are repeated below.
(6) Stressed inherited prefixed verbs with {'mis-}, {'sam-}, {'van-}
Swedish Norwegian Gloss
a. 'misstyda2 'mistyde2 to misinterpret
b. 'samstämma2 'samstemme2 to be attuned
c. 'vanhedra2 'vanhedre2 to dishonour
Here we are reminded that the accent of words with stressed prefixes can also correspond in Central Swedish and Standard East Norwegian within a small set of verbs with native prefixes (cf. (15)) and, as we will discuss in section 2.2.3, within the set of nouns with stressed prefixes (cf. (16)).
Now, to summarise the similarities, we extend our lists of lexical specified words in Central Swedish and Standard East Norwegian by adding some lexically specified affixes to the lists, which correspond in both languages.
(7) Abstract lexical accent specification in Central Swedish: Affixes a. Lexically specified suffixes:
{-'e+r}VERB, {-·e+r}PLURAL
b. Lexically specified post-accenting prefixes:
productive: {be-+}, {för-+}
non-productive: {er-+}, {ent-+}
(8) Abstract lexical accent specification in Standard East Norwegian: Affixes a. Lexically specified suffixes:
{-'e+r}VERB, {-·e+r}PLURAL, {-i+sk}, {-·re+}COMPARATIVE, { -+st}SUPERLATIVE
b. Lexically specified post-accenting prefixes:
productive: {be-+}, {for-+ } non-productive: {er-+}, {ent-+}
c. Lexically specified stressed prefixes:
{a+n-}VERB, {a+v-}VERB, {me+d-}VERB, {mo+t-}VERB, {ne+d-}VERB, {o+m-}VERB, {o+pp-}VERB, {p+å-}VERB, {ti+l-}VERB, {u+nn-}VERB, {u+t-}VERB
All categories of affixes listed here coincide for Central Swedish and Standard East Norwegian in (7) and (8) – except for the stressed prefixes in (8c), which we included just as a
prelude to the next section. As to unspecified affixes, Swedish inflections behave very much like Norwegian inflections, which, as we saw in Chapter 3, are basically all unspecified. This also applies to stressed nominal prefixes that are always Accent 2 in Central Swedish, and mostly Accent 2 in Norwegian, as we will see in sections 2.2.3 and 2.3.l.
Although we have only touched on accent assignment in Central Swedish here and there, leaving out most inflectional and derivational suffixes, the similarities between Central Swedish and Standard East Norwegian are plentiful. Our intentions are simply to hint at how closely related these Scandinavian tonal dialects are. A more comprehensive study of Swedish will naturally be needed to truly establish all the areas of correspondence, however, it must be said that the similarities outweigh the differences by far.
Much can be learned about languages from the differences between them as well, as we see in the next section, when we discuss compound accent assignment and set (8c).