Page:A Danish and Dano-Norwegian grammar.djvu/40

26 Sometimes the whole meaning of a sentence is changed by a change of accent: Min Ven gi'k igen my friend left again, min Ven gik ige'n my friend reappeared (as a ghost, haunted the house).

GLOTTAL STOP.

76. The accent stress (including in some cases the secondary accent) takes in Danish in a great many (originally) monosyllabic words the peculiar form of a glottal stop or catch (Sweet), by the Danish grammarians called Stødtone or Tonehold. This glottal stop is produced by a temporary closure of the glottis and a corresponding interruption of the voice, the result being a sound very similar to the one produced by cough or hiccough. Those Danish dialects, therefore, which are especially given to the use of the glottal stop are said to "hiccough the words forth". As the glottal stop consists in an interruption of the voice, it results that it can only occur in sounds that are produced or accompanied by an emission of voice (vowels and voiced consonants).

The accent stress of originally polysyllabic words is characterized by the absence of the glottal stop.

[The glottal stop is here indicated by (*).]

77. The glottal stop chiefly occurs in the following cases (although there is some difference between the various dialects and also individually as to its use):

1) a great many monosyllables: Ma*nd man, Hu*s house, faa* few (always in monosyllables consisting of long vowel sound followed by consonant (excepting Fa'r, Mo'r, Bro'r, Pe'r, Pov'l which are originally dissyllabic) or short vowel