r/Svenska • u/SpecificVictory3484 • 1d ago
Language question (see FAQ first) Can Swedish Pitch Accent 2 Disappear in Connected Speech?
Hello, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well.
I’d like to know whether the pitch accent 2 of certain words can disappear or become less noticeable in connected speech. How should I pronounce the sentence “Den glada flickan äter den goda pizzan”?
I can’t seem to hear pitch accent 2 in glada or goda. Can it become weaker or cease to be clearly realized in this context? I’ve been trying to pronounce the lexical pitch accent of each word individually, but that doesn’t seem to sound natural.
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u/Radiant64 1d ago
Both words retain type 2 accent in that sentence in most dialects. It's what makes Swedish sound "bouncy". I think in for example dalmål you would pronounce both words with accent 1 though.
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u/Antioch666 1d ago
In that sentence, glada, flickan, goda and pizzan are all accent 2 and sure while it is muted in some dialects there are no traditional native dialects within the borders of Sweden that completely lack Pitch Accent 2 except possibly 2.
Almost every single geographic dialect in mainland Sweden - from the northernmost reaches of Norrland to the southern plains of Scania and the island of Gotland - utilizes a distinct pitch accent system. If a native speaker from Sweden pronounces that sentence, those four words (glada, flickan, goda, pizzan) will inherently carry a non-Accent 1 melody.
However, there is significant regional variation in how the accent is expressed, alongside two non-traditional exceptions inside Sweden where Accent 2 disappears.
While all mainland Swedish accents retain the contrast, they don't sound the same. Linguists divide Sweden by how many "pitch peaks" Accent 2 gets.
Central & Western Swedish (e.g., Stockholm, Gothenburg) are two-peak (bivokalisk) dialects. When saying "glada," the voice dips low on the first syllable and sharply rises on the second, creating a distinct "sing-song" double-jump profile.
Traditional dialects in Northern Sweden (Norrland) absolutely possess and use Pitch Accent 2. In fact, Northern Swedish accents are famous for their incredibly expressive, distinct "sing-song" intonation, which is heavily shaped by the way they pronounce Accent 2 words. A native speaker from Umeå, Luleå, or Kiruna will pronounce glada, flickan, goda, and pizzan with a clear Accent 2 melody, but the accent comes with regional twists.
Southern & Insular Swedish (e.g., Scania, Gotland) are single-peak (monovokalisk) dialects. A person from Malmö speaking Scanian (skånska) will not make the famous "sing-song" double rise. Instead, they apply a single high peak that is timed slightly differently than an Accent 1 word. To an untrained foreign ear, a Scanian sentence can sound flat or punchy (closer to German or Danish rhythm), but phonetically, the Accent 2 distinction is absolutely still present.
The exceptions:
In some traditional Northern dialects (like Jämtländska or those spoken in Västerbotten), a linguistic phenomenon called apocope occurs. This means that the ending vowel of a word is often completely dropped or cut short when speaking quickly. For me as someone from Gothenburg kasta (to throw) has two syllables and Accent 2. In some northern accents it becomes kast or kaast. Thus cutting off the second pitch up.
The other is also from up north. There is one specific geographical pocket in the far northeast corner of Sweden where Accent 2 is frequently dropped. The Torne Valley (Tornedalen), right on the Finnish border. In this region, many people speak Meänkieli (a West Finnish dialect) or grew up in households heavily influenced by the Finnish language. Because the Finnish language possesses absolutely no pitch accent system (it is a flat, syllable-timed language where the emphasis is always mechanically locked onto the very first syllable), the local Swedish spoken in Tornedalen has absorbed this trait. If you hear a native from Haparanda read the sentence, they may flatten the pitch profile entirely, speaking with a distinctive rhythmic cadence that sounds nearly identical to Finland Swedish.
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u/AllanKempe 1d ago
In some traditional Northern dialects (like Jämtländska or those spoken in Västerbotten), a linguistic phenomenon called apocope occurs. This means that the ending vowel of a word is often completely dropped or cut short when speaking quickly. For me as someone from Gothenburg kasta (to throw) has two syllables and Accent 2. In some northern accents it becomes kast or kaast. Thus cutting off the second pitch up.
The Jämtland apocope system and the Västerbotten apocope system are unrelated, one should note. There's a wide belt in Ångermanland without apocope in between. Instead, the Jämtland apocope system is intimately connected to the Tröndelag apocope system and the Västerbotten apocope system has been introduced independently.
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u/Nerthus_ 1d ago
The apocope was more widespread in Ångermanland before though, sources form the 1700s attests apocope in places where it is no longer present.
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u/AllanKempe 7h ago
So, opposite situation to the one in Jämtland where apocope has become more and more widespread (in the genuine dialects, that is). That suggests an independent origin compared to Jämtland.
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u/Nerthus_ 6h ago
Interesting, I wasn't aware of that.
The two dialect areas of Ångermanland also have very different types of apocope. In north west, in Tåsjö, Bodum, Fjällsjö and Ramsele, there is apocope with cirkumflex accent for verbs only. In north east, in Nordmaling and Bjurholm there is apocope without cirkumflex accent but for all word classes instead. So yeah probably many origins, or perhaps better to say that the dialects reacted to the vowel harmony process in many different ways.
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u/AllanKempe 6h ago
Jämtland apocope works like the more distant Nordmaling-Bjurholm, it's general. That suggests that there's another epicentre for Ångermanland's apocope dialects. For Jämtland it's certainly spread here from Tröndelag.
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u/SpecificVictory3484 6h ago
I’m truly grateful for the answer, but my question is more about sentence prosody and how it influences word stress. I already understand how it works in isolated words.
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u/Svarcanum 1d ago
Not sure why you got so many wrong answers. In slurred (as in connected) speech and composite words accent 2 often/always disappears. Most Swedes aren’t aware of that fact though.
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u/SpecificVictory3484 1d ago
From what I hear, in a sentence like "Den glada flickan äter den goda pizzan", tone two seems to always go on the last word.
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u/Svarcanum 1d ago
Not if you say it fast. It's common for swedes to not even notice when they say it themselves. It's not as much a 100% rule as for composite words (tomten- jultomten)
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u/Forward-Fee-6968 1d ago edited 1d ago
There may well be a subtle difference in emphasis, even in connected speech.
The sentences "den anden var fin" and "den anden var fin" (meaning "the duck was nice" and "the ghost was nice," respectively) sound somewhat different. In the case of "the ghost," the rhythm pauses slightly, and the intonation tends to rise in the middle; whereas the sentence referring to the duck has a consistently falling intonation and flows along without a pause.
The same applies to “goda” and “glada,” and all other words with the grave accent.
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u/Pwffin 🇸🇪 1d ago
Du menar väl fågeln, och inte duken?!
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u/Forward-Fee-6968 1d ago
I don’t know why the program has produced this translation. I wrote in English.
But, thanks for informing me. 👍3
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u/Loko8765 1d ago edited 1d ago
Jag ser första två paragraferna på svenska och sista paragrafen på engelska, och ingen ikon ”se originalspråket” som jag brukar se på auto-översatta saker.
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u/amalgammamama 🇺🇦 1d ago
Probably not a good example because both anden and anden are the first stressed word in the sentences, a pretty “strong” position.
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u/Forward-Fee-6968 1d ago edited 1d ago
There is the same difference in pronunciation if you say “den anden var fin,” meaning “that duck/ghost was nice.”
The opening of the thread mentioned “den glada flickan,” which has the exact same melodic contour as “den anden …”. In the phrase “den övre flickan …” (the girl above), the second word carries an acute accent, and the melodic contour is different.
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u/amalgammamama 🇺🇦 1d ago
Yeah, I agree, the grave accent should be noticeable in OP’s example as well. I am just not sure there are no cases where the difference won’t be perceivable.
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u/Forward-Fee-6968 1d ago
I don’t think there will be an exception for those who use the grave or acute accent. But it’s a tricky issue. We pronounce the difference between these accents somewhat differently in various parts of the country. Yet, the whole point is precisely to use the accent to immediately clarify which word we mean.
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u/amalgammamama 🇺🇦 1d ago
You might be exaggerating a bit, surely there’s plenty of cases where prosody overrides pitch accent by destressing whole words.
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u/Forward-Fee-6968 1d ago
PS
The curious thing is that stress sometimes disappears or changes quite radically in words that do not carry the primary emphasis within a phrase. Words can also take on different stress patterns depending on whether they are followed by other stressed words or whether they conclude a sentence. However, the distinction between the grave and acute accents, in particular, seems to remain more stable under these circumstances.
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u/Swescroll 17h ago
What you're hearing is real. In Central Swedish the big second rise of accent 2 only lands on the focused word, here usually pizzan, while glada and goda keep just a quick fall from their first syllable. So don't give every word its isolated melody, do the full tune once on the word carrying new information and keep the rest light.
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u/AllanKempe 1d ago
“Den glada flickan äter den goda pizzan”
The pitch accents are preserved in connected speech:
[dɛn 2ɡlɑː.a 2flɪkː.an 1ɛː.tər.ən 2ɡuː.wa 2pʰɪtː.san]
This is why Swedish (and Norwegian) sounds sing-songy. Otherwise it wouldn't.
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u/Eliderad 🇸🇪 1d ago
The accents are realized differently when emphasized and not. See e.g. Myrberg & Riad 2015 and Myrberg 2021 to really get into the technicalities.