Realizations of /t/ in Jutlandic dialects of Danish

Abstract

Danish /t/ is an aspirated alveolar stop, and it is a well-known fact that

the aspiration is typically realized as affrication in Standard Danish (e.g.

Basbøll 2005: 60). An overt feature of the traditional dialect of Northern Jutland is the tendency to use a phonetic variant of /t/ sometimes called the ‘dry /t/’, realized with noiseless aspiration instead of affrication. ‘Dry /t/’ is typically realized with a dental place of articulation, and a significantly shorter Voice Onset Time (VOT) than Standard Danish /t/. In this paper, it is proven that ‘dry /t/’ – or at least a lower degree of noisy affrication and a shorter VOT than in Standard Danish – is found to some extent in all the major traditional dialect areas of the Jutland peninsula. Systematic variation in /t/ realization from dialect area to dialect area was also observed, in spite of the peninsula being a relatively small geographic area . The study furthermore found an interesting association between the degree of frication, VOT, and the dialect area. Fully affricated /t/ was practically never found in Northern Jutlandic, and in the Southern dialect, dry /t/ was found only with a short VOT in unstressed syllables, with affricated or highly noisy /t/ otherwise being the norm. In short, there is a continuum of interplay between VOT and affrication in /t/ realization, so that in Northern Jutland even low levels of noisy aspiration are associated with a high VOT, while in Southern Jutland even affrication proper is not associated with a high VOT.