Swedish and Norwegian intonation contains some tones that go together with words, rather than with overall phrases or utterances. These so-called tone accents (1 and 2) distinguish 1ketchup ‘id.’ from 2senap ‘mustard’. The melody of the utterance is identical in the two words, but one tone distinguishes the two words melodically. That is the lexical tone. Such tones are not found in the close relatives English and German. In Danish, a very close relative, we find a different (but related) system in most dialects, known as stød. There is a historical, but not fully understood, relationship between tone accent and stød.
I’m writing a book where I discuss most aspects relating to the tone accent, building on 25 years of research. How and when do lexical tones originate in the North Germanic languages. How does the system develop in the dialects? How are the accents related within the sound system? Do both accents involve lexical tones or is it just one of them that is like that? Another issue is accent in the vocabulary. Some endings correlate with accent 2 (1bil, 2bil-ar ’car/s’), while others don’t (1bil-en). An initial unstressed syllable may remove accent: 2del-ning ’split’ but för1del-ning ‘distribution’.
I discuss different theories regarding the tone accents and I make comparisons between the Swedish/Norwegian tone accent system, the Danish stød system, and a couple of other systems nearby (Central Franconian, Latvian, Lithuanian).