Parameters of tonal variation in and between three Scandinavian languages

Abstract

The three Scandinavian languages Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are closely related languages, but they all have their own distinct “speech melody”. Also language-internally, there are characteristic regional speech melodies. In this paper, we take the literature as a point of departure for discussing and demonstrating what inventory of prosodic parameters must be considered to account for the tonal characteristics of these three languages and their varieties. A direct comparison is made difficult by different linguistic traditions. We thus discuss what units could be equivalent and suggest terms and definitions for a crosslinguistic comparison.