F0, voice quality, and Danish stød revisited

Danish stød is a syllable prosody, hitherto described as a kind of creaky voice with tonal side effects. One such is the well established, though not ubiquitous, abrupt lowering of F0 towards the end of the syllable. Eli Fischer-Jørgensen found, in the 1970s and 1980s, a difference also in the beginning of stressed syllables: F0 is higher in the beginning of syllables with stød. Confirming her findings 40 years later was straightforward in read word lists and as a clear trend in non-scripted monologues. In dialogues, however, the modest effect of stød on onset F0 is overshadowed by the greater variation in overall frequency range. Higher F0 onset is present also in unstressed syllables with stød, though of lesser magnitude. The results support a characterization of Danish stød as compressed, rather than creaky voice. They also demonstrate the viability of controlled speech materials for investigations of finer prosodic detail.