Swedish MOC

Vowels in Swedish

Swedish has a total of nine long-short vowel pairs, making a total of eighteen vocalic phonemes¹. A basic summary is followed²³:

• ‹i› /iː/ and /ɪ/
• ‹e› /eː/ and /e/¹
• ‹ä› /ɛː/ and /ɛ/
• ‹a› /αː/ and /a/
• ‹å› /oː/ and /ɔ/
• ‹o› /uː/ and /ʊ/
• ‹u› /ʉː/ and /ɵ/
• ‹y› /yː/ and /ʏ/⁴
• ‹ö› /øː/ and /œ/

Many phonologists take up the view that vowel length (monomoraic or bimoraic) is entirely predictable by environment, and hence contrast comes from the consonants around the vowel⁵. For a summary of the environments in which long and short forms are displaced, refer to Vowel length in Swedish.

Vowel paradigm

Using the convention taken by Riad⁵, we use the IPA symbol for the main long realisation of the vowel as the symbol for the phoneme.

• ‹i› /i/
• ‹y› /y/
• ‹e› /e/
• ‹ä› /ɛ/
  • [+long +stressed] → [ɛː]
    • → [æ] / _ [+retroflex]
  • [+short +stressed] → [ɛ]
• ‹ö› /ø/
• ‹u› /ʉ/
• ‹o› /u/
• ‹å› /o/
• ‹a› /ɑ/

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Footnotes

1. As noted below in Vowel paradigm, short ‹e› and ‹ä› have neutralised. Herefore we have eight short vowels to match nine long ones. ↩ ↩²

2. 2008. Swedish: an essential grammar ↩

3. Note /◌/ here should not be taken to represent unique phonemes, as long-short pairs are typically considered allophones of the same phoneme. See discussion below, especially Vowel paradigm. ↩

4. The place of articulation of the ‹u› pair and the ‹y› pair are largely the same in central dialects: contrast instead comes from Types of roundedness: compressed ‹◌ᵝ› and protruded ‹◌ʷ›. ↩

5. 2014. The phonology of Swedish, p. 17 ↩ ↩²