Re: Nasality pa svenska

Pavel Iosad wrote:
> > > > Okay, so I'm thinking that, without the benefit of having met a
> > > > native speaker since I decided to learn Swedish, I've managed to
> > > > develop a reasonably unembarassing Swedish accent, grave and acute
> > > > accents and all.
> > >
> > >Heh :-) Now my accent is quite misleading, 'cause my _r_'s
> > are uvular,
> > >but of course they make my _rt_'s, _rd_'s, _rn_'s and _rs_'s
> > >postalveolar...
> >
> > Postalveolar? Not that there's a world of acoustic difference, but
> > prescriptively and following my lect they should be
> > retroflex, along with /r/ itself.
>
>Hmph. Retroflex was indeed what I had gathered when reading the
>descriptions a long time, when I never thought of learning Swedish, let
>alone at Univeristy. When I came here, however, I tried to make those
>_rt_'s and sundry retroflex, but it appeared it's not quite the thing. At
>least on those tapes, and in the pronunciation of both our teachers (one of
>whom is from Uppsala anyway).
This sounds a bit odd to me.

What're these people on the tape having for/C/ (as in _tjock_)? Many people
(incl me) have [S] for it - do the tape people merge /C/ and /rs/?

And BTW, what're they teaching you for /S/ (as in _skära_)?

>And also, I don't think the _r_ is retroflex, as it is (to my, admittedly
>not very musical, ears) a trill - a weaker one than, say in Russia, but a
>trill, and I can't make a retroflex trill... I can't do a normal apical
>one, for that matter, but I nevertheless think it's difficult
>
I can make a retroflex trill, if that's any help: [r`::::::::::.] :-)

That said, my /r/'s are often more approximatey-fricativish than trilled.

> > Uvualr /r/ isn't uncommon, tho' people who use it
> > often have
> > pure dentals for /rt/, /rd/ etc (a trait better not acquired
> > by a L2 speaker in my mind - it sounds very dialectal).
>
>The point. Of course, if one has an uvular _r_, one can't assimilate it
>into the (dorsal?) dentals, since they're completely different then. We're
>told this uvular _r_ along with lack of assimilation is a feature of the
>southern dialects way down in Skåne, and are told not imitate it. That's
>exactly why IO said it was misleading.
>
Uvular /r/ and lack of assmilation wouldn't be that bad from a foreigner in
my mind. What'd I'd cringe to hear from a Russian is uvular /r/ and
/r/+dental assimilating into a pure dental (ie, _sport_ and _spott_ become
homphones, f'rinstance).

>(come to think of it, Swedish is (or rather will be, I rather hope) at best
>my L3, no? :-)
>
> > >Finns det folk som studerar ocksе svenska hдr, I wonder? :-)
> > (hur sдger
> > >man 'I wonder' pе svenska? ;-))
> >
> > Literally, _jag undrar_. If used as a tag question like that, syntax'd
> > switch to _undrar jag_, altho' I wouldn't normally use such a
> > construction at all (not that its wrong, tho').
>
>What would one use in a similar situation then? The Russians would simply
>put a word like 'interesno' (interesting) or 'xotel(a) by ja znat'' (I
>would like to know) as a tag.
>
I might've said _Finns det ngn mer här som studerar svenska, tro?_. But this
speaks as much of personal ways of expression as anything else.


                Andreas

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