Re: Danish: tonal suffices?

Oskar Gudlaugsson skrev:
-----<snip>-----
>Recently, I've been considering Danish phonology and morphology.
>Considering, not studying, that is; just thinking about it in my head,
>pronouncing words to myself, etc.
>
>What I'm thinking about is: Does Danish have a system of morphemic tones?
>What I've usually read about tones in Scandinavian languages is "Swedish and
>Norwegian have tonemes, Danish doesn't". But I'm not thinking about the
>Swe-Nor tonemes, which differentiate between two words with different
>meanings. The Danish use of tones I'm thinking about is this:
In Danish, what generally corresponds to the Norwegian/Swedish word-tones
is what is called the stød - a glottal catch at the end of certain
stressed syllables. But there are significant differences. If I recall
correctly, the stød is only found in stressed syllables that end in voiced
continuant, whereas word-tones in Norwegian/Danish has no such restriction.
Consequently, stød can be dropped or lost in certain morphological
contexts, while this never happens in Norwegian/Swedish.

>(note that this is all based on my examinations of my own Danish speech
>(which is to be considered normal) and that of the few people I've spoken
>native Danish with the past few days; I have read no books about the matter
>and consulted no-one with linguistic knowledge; so if I'm discovering the
>wheel, please bear with me :))
>
>Stem + -e  =  RISING TONE
>  (the -e is segmentally realized as either 0 or [@])
>Stem + -er = FALLING TONE
>  (the -er is realized as [a])
In connected speech and depending on type of sentence (statement, question,
etc.), I can have falling or rising tone in both of these.

>Stem + -   = FLAT TONE (either high or low)
>
>Examples:
>Sing. "dreng" (boy) has a flat tone, while its plural "drenge" is different
>only in a slightly longer vowel (me thinks) and a _rising tone_. Sing.
>"kvinde" (woman) also has a rising tone, while its plural "kvinder" has a
>falling tone + suffix [a]. The infinitive "kende" (to be familiar with) has
>a rising tone, while its present form "kender" has a falling tone + suffix
>[a].
>
>So it can be seen the tones have no semantic meaning or grammatical
>association of any kind; they merely accompany the suffices -e and -er.
I think your perception of tone here is actually stød. I'm sure that a
glottal-catch could in certain circumstances be perceived as a falling
tone to the untrained ear. When you add '-e', stød is dropped; <dreng>
[drEN?] becomes <drenge> [drEN@]. Furthermore, the [@] often assimilates
to the preceding voiced continuant (if any), so you'd have [drEN?]
becoming [drENN=] -- utterances that sound almost identical except for
the presence or absence of stød (or to the untrained ear; the presence
or absence of a falling tone <-- Hint hint: there's an idea for a
conlang!) The suffix '-er' on the other hand does not necessarily cause
the stød to drop. If the right conditions are met, it may even add stød.
The rules are extremely complicated though, and beyond my 'expertise'.

Since you speak Danish, an excellent book to get your hands on to
learn more on Danish Phonetics and Phonology (and phonetics and
phonology in general) is:

Grønnum, N. 1998. _Fonetik og Fonologi: Almen og Dansk_. Copenhagen:
     Akademisk Forlag A/S.  ISBN: 87-500-3531-2

Danish phonology is wonderfully complicated, and the book will give
you plenty of inspiration for complicated phonologies. It has a strong
generative approach to Danish phonology, but digresses once in a while
to a structuralist approach only to point out its disadvantage in
describing Danish phonology.

kristian- 8)