Danish Phonology - Consonants

Consonants

Modern Standard Danish has the following 21 consonants:

The Danish allophones can be analyzed into 15 distinctive consonant phonemes, /p t k b d ɡ m n f s h v j r l/, where /p t k d ɡ v j r/ have different pronunciation in syllable onset vs. syllable coda.

occurs only after /s/ or /t/. Since doesn't occur after these phonemes, can be analyzed as /j/, which is devoiced after voiceless alveolar frication. This makes it unnecessary to postulate a /ɕ/-phoneme in Danish.

Instances of can be analyzed as /n/ as it only occurs before /ɡ/ or /k/ and isn't contrasting with . This makes it unnecessary to postulate an /ŋ/-phoneme in Danish.

/p, t, k/ are voiceless and aspirated in syllable onset: (some scholars analyse them as voiceless aspirated lenis: ). aspiration is lost in syllable coda.

/b, d, ɡ/ are voiceless and lenis in syllable onset: . In syllable coda /d, ɡ/ and sometimes /b/ are opened: . /ɡ/ becomes after front vowels and after back vowels.

may have slight frication, but are usually pronounced as pure approximants.

In syllable coda, /v/ and /r/ are normally pronounced and . In slow and careful speech /v/ is often = ). /r/ forms a diphthong with the preceding tautosyllabic vowel: e.g. stor "big", næring "nourishment" . /a(ː)r/ and /ɔːr/ / /ɔr/ coalesce into the long vowels and respectively. /ər/, /rə/ and /rər/ are all rendered as, e.g. læger "doctors" = lære "teach, learn; doctrine" = lærer "teaches, learns; teacher" .

/v.ə/, /j.ə/ and /d.ə/ (/əd/) are normally rendered as the vowels, and ., are pretty close to and, e.g. leve "live" = Leo . /v.əd/ and especially /j.əd/ are frequently assimilated to (in the case of /v.əd/ normally, but not exclusively, with an indication of a rounding at the outset), e.g. meget "much, very", Strøget "a central shopping street" . In Jutlandic Standard Danish, the word-final phoneme is /t/, so these words are normally pronounced, in that variety.