Re: [tied] The disappearance of *-s -- The saga continues

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 19:01:34 -0700 (PDT),
> enlil@... wrote:
>
> >Mate:
> >> I started as retroflex /s./ but now I would say it is generally
> >> /S/, at least in Central Sweden.
> >
> >Ugh, more complexity. Well, if this helps, my greatgrandparents
> >came from Stockholm around 1900-something. Something tells me
> >that this [s.], even if it is retroflex isn't terribly so.
> >Otherwise, I'd imagine it sounding more Hindi :) All I remember
> >is a "softening" of /s/ to what sounded like an "s" with a
> >tip or flat tongue further behind the teeth than normal but only
> >by a few millimeters or so. I suppose that can be called
> >"retroflex" but not very much and the tongue wasn't curled back,
> >I don't think.
>
> It was originally as "retroflex" as Polish sz or Mandarin
> sh, i.e. not really retroflex at all (Ladefoged uses the
> term "laminal flat postalveolar"). The acoustic effect is
> similar to that of retroflex /s./, and the conditioning in
> Swedish by /r/ (as with the stops: /rt/ > [t.]) is another
> common factor.
>
> The retroflex shibilant /rs/ pushed old Swedish /S/ (<sj>)
> into the sound it has acquired now (a labiovelarized
> labiodental or dorsovelar fricative), which means that /rs/
> can now move into the territory of phonetic [S].
>

I think the "sibilant system" of "proper" (ie. Stockholm) Swedish has
been moving in the general /S/, not /s/ direction in the last
ddecades, driven by a "shibboleth" contrast with peripheral dialects.
Glen's grandmother would have spoken with a less "extreme" /s./ than
today's Stockholmers.
BTW, I think it's the presence of such socio-/dia-lects shibboleth
phonemes that make immigrants tend to carry their own "proper" (i
their own language) pronounciation into their new language, where it
is "wrong". The stereotyped tendency of Swedes to pronounce English
<j> as /y/ stems in my opinion from the "proper" Swedish
pronounciation of <dj> as /y/ as opposed to dialectal (eg Finnish
Swedish) and archaic /dj/ (not to forget Danish, which went the
oppposite direction).

Torsten