Consonant Length, Stød and Morae in Standard Danish

Abstract

After a brief summary of Hans Basbøll''s mora analysis of Danish stød, the results of an acoustic analysis of – primarily – consonant duration are reported. In natural running speech postvocalic stød bearing (moraic) sonorant consonants are not – as might be expected from previous investigations – systematically longer across positions than the corresponding stødless (non-moraic) consonants; therefore, in modern standard Copenhagen Danish, the moraic/non-moraic distinction in consonants is qualitative, not straightforwardly quantitative, as it is in vowels. Further, the results of an analysis of consonant duration in schwa assimilation are reported. The importance of citation form speech material versus more natural running speech is discussed.