----- Original Message -----From: Urban LindqvistSent: Saturday, April 15, 2000 5:58 PMSubject: [phoNet] Swedish[...] /ɧ/, /ʂ/, and /ç/.
The last one is pretty straightforward and exhibits only little variation (affricate [cç] in some areas). Phonetically, it's not a German [ç] as in 'ich', but rather a sound intermediate between [ç] and [ʃ], something like [ʃʲ] (or [ʧʲ]), pretty close to (a shortened) Russian <щ>.
From your description, it looks like [ɕ] (= Polish ś, which is precisely halfway between, say, German [ç] and English [ʃ] = Chinese x, Japanese sh, etc.), the so-called alveolopalatal fricative. Your "retroflex" must also be pretty close to what I prefer to transcribe as [ʂ] for Polish sz (against the traditional but inaccurate "[ʃ]" typically found in hadbooks of Polish phonetics).
/ɧ/ and /ʂ/ are more interesting. /ɧ/ can be described as a palato-velar fricative: start with an ordinary velar fricative like [x] in Russian Харьков, keep the back of the tongue in the velar position and the tip of the tongue low, but raise the mid-back part of the tongue towards the soft palate — voilà! It is usually labialized too, often only slightly but in some speakers' version the acoustic impression comes close to that of an [f].
The /ʂ/ is generally what it looks like, a voiceless retroflex sibilant, but it often comes closer to a [ʃ], though usually with some 'whistling'.
In some varieties (including mine) [ɧ] is used mainly intially and medially before stressed vowels — sjö 'lake' [ɧøː] and station 'station' [s̪t̪aˈɧʊːn] —, whereas [ʂ] mainly occurs finally and medially before unstressed vowels — kors 'cross' [kʰɔʂː] and duscha 'take a shower' [˜d̪ɵʂːa]. For this reason they could be considered allophones, but there are some exceptions like försöka 'try' [fœˈʂøːkʰa] and berså 'arbour' [bæˈʂoː].
Historically, we can assume the following scenario: the phoneme /ʃ/ (from various consonant groups, like sj, sk, skj, stj) developed two allophones, [ʃ] and [ɧ] with the above distribution. [ʃ] merged with /ʂ/ (< rs), which could neither occur word-initially nor before stressed vowels (due to the Germanic initial stress) except in compounds (för-söka) or in non-Germanic loan-words (berså < French berceau). (/ʂ/ came about in a general development of /r/ + dental into retroflex: /rt/ > /ʈ/, /rd/ > ɖ, /rn/ > /ɳ/, /rl/ > /ɭ/; in standard Swedish the sequence /rl/ is simplified to /l/.)
Much of this is beautifully parallel to various Indic stuff, isn't it?
But I've probably given you more information than you wanted already. I might post something on the Swedish accents and possible something else as well.
Do, by all means.
Piotr