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Vår fonetiska geografi. Om svenskans accenter, melodi och uttal. Gösta Bruce (2010) Lund: Studentlitteratur. Pp. 239. ISBN 9144050534

2013; Equinox Publishing; Volume: 6; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1558/sols.v6i2.383

1750-8649

Ilpo Kempas,

Phonetics and Phonology Research

Var fonetiska geografi. Om svenskans accenter, melodi och uttal. Gosta Bruce (2010) Lund: Studentlitteratur. Pp. 239. ISBN 9144050534The book, the title of which could be translated from Swedish into English by Our phonetic geography: about the accents, melody and pronunciation of Swedish, provides a most interesting synthesis of the results of several previous studies on the subject, made not only by the author himself (e.g. Bruce, 1998) but also such prominent researchers as Elert (1981; 1982 with Fries) and Garding (1997; 1998 with Kjellin), among others. The book deals with both segmental and prosodic variation in the Swedish language. It is primarily intended for university students in the fields of Nordic Philology/Swedish, General Linguistics, and Phonetics.Swedish, together with Norwegian, is one of the relatively few European languages with a pitch or word accent. Stressed words have either a rising (acute) or a falling-rising (grave) accent, and there exist a great number of pairs of two-syllable words differentiated only by accent. While lists of such pairs are plentifully available, and the theoretical grounds for the appearance of these two accents are well documented, not so much has been written about geographic (and other) variation in their use, as well as about how these accents are realized at the sentence level, in continuous speech, taking also tonal prominence into account. The book in question fills this gap, combining the most recent theoretical insights into an easy-to-read, detailed presentation of the topic.The book provides an interesting feature: its readers have access to a permanent website with online audio samples. This assures that the reader understands the phonetic phenomena dealt with; indeed, some of them (e.g. viby-i, viby-y) would be difficult to perceive without auditory observation, even with a detailed theoretic description.Chapter 1 (pp. 10-41) consists of a general presentation of the concepts of dialect and phonetics/phonology, and serves as an introduction to the topic in question. Also the regional variants of Swedish are listed, and illustrated with several figures (pp. 26, 27 and 29).Chapter 2 (pp. 44-66) focuses on the word accents in Swedish, presenting the rules governing the choice of the acute and the grave accent. It also includes a flowchart that can be used to predict which one is likely to appear in a single word (p. 57). Regional variation is dealt with to some extent (presentation of the characteristics of the accent in compounds in South Sweden), and Swedish is compared to Danish and Norwegian. An interesting mention is made on p. 58 about a feature in some dialects both north and south of Stockholm. In contrast with the prevailing pattern, according to which a tonal distinction is made between words based on morphologic and semantic grounds, the above dialects show the use of the grave accent even in cases which would require the acute (tycker 'likes'/'thinks', slanten 'the slope'). Bruce refers to studies that point to this phenomenon gradually disappearing from actual use (Ericsson and Engstrand, 2003), so there is no reason to expect the grave accent to take over.Chapter 3 (pp. 68-100) provides a most interesting presentation and comparison of the different intonation patterns the acute and the grave take in different regions. The author has built on previous research and typology by Garding (1977), originally based on data gathered by Ernst A. Meyer. The maps on pp. 72 and 74 are intriguing; my curiosity is aroused by two details. First, it is understandable that there are no data from very sparsely populated areas, such as the northernmost areas of Sweden. However, why are there so few data from the south-eastern area of Sweden the corners of which can roughly be associated with Jonkoping, Vastervik, Soderakra and Almhult? Secondly, both abovementioned maps show an intonation pattern typical of Finland Swedish and Tornedalen (no distinction between the acute and the grave accent) in one locality, i. …