Complementary quantity in Swedish dialects

The current study is undertaken within the project Swedia 2000, one objective of which is the development of a quantity typology for Swedish dialects. To that end, a series of studies has hitherto been undertaken. Strangert and Wretling (2002), Schaeffler, Wretling and Strangert (2002) and Schaeffler and Wretling (2002) report on temporal and/or spectral aspects of quantity distinctions in Northern dialects of Sweden and Swedish-speaking areas of Finland. The studies all depart from the standard phonologic analysis of Swedish (Elert, 1964) according to which there is a length distinction in vowels as well as consonants and moreover, a complementary pattern of the vowel and immediately following consonant in stressed syllables resulting in sequences of V:C and VC:, respectively. Also, in a recent study, Schaeffler and Wretling (2003) employing a top-down type of approach, related quantity data to a traditional classification of dialect areas. In contrast, the approach here is bottom-up, starting out from data without any pre-determined idea of dialect areas. We aim at an overview of complementary quantity manifestations based on speakers from close to 70 locations all over Sweden and the Swedish-speaking areas in Finland.