Does gryde rhyme with byde or bøde?

En undersøgelse af r-sænkning i taleproduktionen og rimperceptionen af de høje vokaler /i y u/ på dansk

Abstract

The term r-lowering refers to a sound change in Danish, where /r/ lowers adjacent vowels. Prevocalic /r/, realized as a pharyngeal approximant [ʕ̞], affects all non-high front vowels, as well as /u/, which is a newer development (Grønnum, 2005). This study investigates whether the high vowels /i y u/ undergo r-lowering after /r/ in speech production and rhyme perception. It is based on a two-part experiment in which 10 young native speakers of Danish would first read out a list of words and then complete a survey on rhyme judgment. Acoustic measurements of the vowels show that the high vowels are produced closer to mid-high vowels when directly preceded by /r/. According to the survey, the participants think that a third of the post-rhotic vowels rhyme with mid-high vowels. There is a slight correlation between pronouncing post-rhotic vowels acoustically more similar to mid-high vowels and rhyming post-rhotic high vowels more with mid-high vowels. The data suggests that in the variety of Danish spoken by young informants from Copenhagen and North Zealand, the high vowels /i y u/ undergo r-lowering after /r/. The sound change seems to occur in speech production before rhyme perception, maybe because the informants pronounce post-rhotic vowels differently than how they imagine they pronounce them.