Supradentaler i färöiskan
Authors: Hagström Björn 
Published: March 2024

It is a well-known characteristic feature of most central Scandinavian dialects that the phonemic sequences /rs/, /rt/, /rd/, and /rn/ are realized a s [?]> [t]> [<!]> a n f i [".]> i-e- a s single retroflex phones as the result of total assimilation. In the present paper attention is drawn to the same type of assimilation in Faroese.

The phonemes /t/, /d/, and /n/ in Faroese are usually described as dentals. With the exception of [g] (Lockwood, Risohel), the retroflex variants of the dental phonemes have not been observed by research scholars. The present author has transcribed some 5000 words from tape recordings of unrehearsed connected speech, representing three informants. All sequences of /r/ plus /s/, /t/, /d/, or /n/ in the transcriptions have been registered and analysed.

The former part of the article deals with some discrepancies between the orthographic and phonemic systems of Faroese. Cases where <(r) appears in the orthography but has no phonemic equivalent are discarded, before the influence o( /r/ on adjacent consonants is discussed.

In the latter part of the article the result of the investigation is presented. The sequence /r/ plus /s/, /t/, /d/, or /n/ may be realized in three ways: 1) [r] plus dental allophone, 2) [r] plus retroflex allophone, 3) retroflex allophone alone. Thus the single retroflex phones [g], [(,] etc. are interpreted as realizations of the phonemic sequences /rs/, /rt/ etc.

The phonemic sequences in question are pronounced as follows. (4.1) /rs/ in a word is always realized as one phone, [ s ] , which is long after a stressed vowel — as in fýrs »eighty« — and short after an unstressed vowel — as in forstandi »(I) understand« —. (4.2, 4.3) /rt/ and /rd/ are realized as two phones after a stressed vowel, the phonemic length of the cluster being realized in [r:]. The stop is generally retroflex, seldom dental. Examples: burtur »away«, stórt »big«, Ixrdu (pret. pl. of lara) »taught«, hoyrdi (pret. sg. of hoyra) »heard«. After an unstressed vowel the sequence /rt/ is pronounced [rt ] or [t]> t r i e sequence /rd/ nearly always [ 4 ] - (4.4) The phonetic realization of /rn/ in a word is [rn] or [rn,], the latter variant being more frequent. The phonemic sequence /rn/ is by no means so frequent as the graphemic equivalent <(rn), for two reasons: 1) The plural endings -ir, -ar, -ur cast out the /r/ when the definite article (-nir, -nar) is added, 2) ^ r n ) is the graphemic rendering of /dn/ in most words where <(rn^> is included in one morpheme, e.g. barn »child«. (5) As a rule assimilation (partial or total) also takes place, when one word ends with /r/ and the following begins with a dental phoneme. Example: for nó%v »too much«.

At last it is also pointed out that every dental phoneme following immediately after a retroflex consonant adopts the same place of articulation, thus becoming retroflex itself. Example: skarst (pret. passive of skera) [skag:);] »was cut«. The investigation shows that the retroflex allophones of dental consonant phonemes are the rule after /r/ in unrehearsed Faroese speech. These allophones are frequent and they are clearly distinguished from the corresponding dental allophones boch acoustically and articulatorically. It is the author's opinion that the set of retroflex consonants described above should ,be included in detailed descriptions of Faroese pronunciation.