In Swedish, words are associated with either of two pitch contours labelled as Accent 1 and Accent 2. At least one of them is taken to be phonologically and cognitively marked. Besides encoding lexical tonal distinctions, these accents reflect intonational prominence. Drawing on data from psychometric and electroencephalographic (EEG) measures, we scrutinized the functional load of the accents for the processing of linguistic input, and explored any potential processing differences between Accent 1 and Accent 2. Experimental stimuli consisted of one hundred sets of auditory dialogues, where test words were accented either appropriately or inappropriately within their respective contexts. Native speakers of Central Swedish were tasked with judging the correctness of sentences containing the test words, actively in the psychometric paradigm and passively in the EEG paradigm. Psychometric data from forty participants revealed that accent violations exerted a statistically significant negative impact on correctness judgements. Both Accent 1 and Accent 2 violations were deemed as incorrect by the listeners, indicating that listeners use both of them to arrive at the correct interpretation of the linguistic input. Moreover, there was a statistically significant difference in the perceived correctness of violations depending on the accent pattern. Accent 2 violations received a lower rating for correctness in comparison to Accent 1 violations, suggesting that listeners show more sensitivity to accent violations in Accent 2 words than in Accent 1 words. EEG data from twenty participants were in accordance with the psychometric data, and documented larger negative ERP responses, observed at both early and later latencies, to Accent 2 violations compared to Accent 1 violations, reflecting neurocognitive difficulty associated with the processing of linguistic input. Put differently, the application of wrong accent pattern for Accent 2 words resulted in higher costs for spoken communication than Accent 1 words, which is in line with the notion that Accent 2 is marked both phonologically and cognitively in Central Swedish. This pattern of results provides evidence that the brain not only extracts and utilizes pitch accents for a coherent interpretation of the linguistic input but also treats them differently depending on their phonological and cognitive markedness.

Prosody not only distinguishes “lexical” meaning but also plays a key role in information packaging by highlighting the most relevant constituent of the discourse, namely, “focus” information. The present study investigated the role of lexical and focus functions of prosody in the coherent interpretation of linguistic input. To this end, we manipulated the correctness of prosodic markers in the context and scrutinized how listeners evaluate these violations—whether they result in lexical or focus anomalies—using psychometric and EEG measures. Psychometric data from 40 participants indicated that prosodic violations were judged as incorrect by the listeners both at the lexical and focus levels, with focus level violations leading to lower correctness scores than lexical level violations, and combined violations receiving the lowest scores. EEG data from 20 participants documented a strong N400 effect (350–550 msec) in response to combined violations, and a late posterior negativity (600–900 msec) present only for combined violations and focus-level violations. Consistent with the psychometric data, the EEG data suggest that prosodic violations at the focus level result in higher costs for comprehension than prosodic violations at the lexical level, whereas combined prosodic violations most significantly disrupt the interpretation. Taken together, these findings suggest that the language comprehension system is sensitive to accurate representations of both lexical and information structure prosody, and benefits from the interaction between them; however, they are weighted differently based on their relevance for a functioning spoken communication.

Syftet med denna rapport är att belysa organisation och ledarskap i den tre terminer långa utbildningen Intensivsvenska Samsyn. Data och erfarenheter är insamlade för utbildningens kull 2 som startade i januari 2024 och avslutades i juni 2025. Kull 2 bestod av 10 skolor belägna i olika delar av Sverige. Deltagarna utgjordes av över 130 lärare i olika ämnen och 12 rektorer som arbetar med introduktionsprogrammen i gymnasieskolan. Ca 680 elever har berörts av satsningen.

I arbetet med kull 2 har betydelsen av organisation liksom ledarskap på olika nivåer blivit särdeles tydlig, och vi prövar därför att synliggöra och fördjupa organisationsperspektivet i arbetet. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna kan summeras med begrepp som skolförbättring, fjärde generationens skolutveckling, relationell handlingskraft och distribuerat ledarskap. 

Rapporten innehåller alltså en utförlig rapport från kull 2:s process och resultat och är disponerad i fem delar: 1) Design för skolförbättring om utbildningsmodellens innehållsliga dimensioner och kollektiva ramar, 2) Deltagare skolor och organisation om kriterier för deltagande, skolornas storlek, skolornas utbildnings‑, arbets- och utvecklingsorganisation, 3) Utbildningens faser, tidsåtgång och genomförande om fasernas syfte, mål och resultat, 4) Deltagarnas perspektiv utifrån enkäter bland annat om deltagarnas uppskattning av arbetet med de innehållsliga delarna och med det kollektiva arbetet vid tre tillfällen – i slutet av termin 1, i slutet av termin 2 och i slutet av termin 3, 5) Skolornas slutredovisningom skolornas förståelse av sin egen process och de uppnådda resultaten och till sist 6) Sammanfattning. 

Läsning av skönlitteratur med nyanlända elever på gymnasieskolans språkintroduktion kan ske från första dagen. För att arbeta med skönlitteratur i svenska som andraspråk krävs planering och balansering av den undervisningstid som står till buds. Man bör välja texter med omsorg så att man kan ta sig an och förbi de utmaningar som uppstår på språknivån och komma till ett samtal om texten och de tankar den väcker. I kapitlet beskrivs hur skönlitteratur kan få utrymme i ämnesplaneringen och hur en undervisningscykel baserad på dikter av Gustaf Fröding kan läggas upp samt hur läsning av en hel roman kan struktureras och komma att integrera litteraturhistoriska, litteraturvetenskapliga och historiska perspektiv med olika sorters läsande och skrivande. Kapitlet vänder sig till lärare som undervisar nyanlända elever från mellanstadiet och uppåt.

Word stress is a rhythm-inspired foot structure of major-class words. Germanic feet developed from stem-based trochees, which are headed by an initial heavy syllable. The complexity in the manifestation of a word’s foot structure decreases from English via Dutch and German to Scandinavian. This is first seen in the four-way contrast among disyllables in English, which may have two stressed syllables, with primary stress either on the first or last and secondary stress or no stress on the other syllable. Only a two-way contrast is available in Dutch, German, and peninsular Scandinavian, due to a ban on adjacent stressed syllables, while the initial stress of Icelandic (and Faroese) leaves only one prosodic pattern, excluding recent loans. English, Dutch, and German distinguish primary and secondary stresses, while Scandinavian admits only one stress per prosodic word. This prosodic complexity gradient is reflected in the pitch accent distribution at the word level, most noticeably reflected in the effects of the Rhythm Rule, which are frequent in English and absent in Scandinavian. Additional features whose distribution relates to stress are the stød in Danish and the tone contrasts in Franconian and peninsular Scandinavian. In all the languages except Icelandic and Faroese, foot structure is intimately involved in morphological formations, in unison with segmental effects. These are explained by affix subcategorizations and prosodic annotations, either as inherent properties of the affix (e.g., pre-accenting) or as requirements made by the affix on the base (e.g., posttonic), while affix orderings are explained by level-ordered lexical phonology. The difference between (primary and secondary) stressed syllables and unstressed syllables plays a central role in word detection in English language processing.

Word stress is a rhythm-inspired foot structure of major-class words. Germanic feet developed from stem-based trochees, which are headed by an initial heavy syllable. The complexity in the manifestation of a word’s foot structure decreases from English via Dutch and German to Scandinavian. This is first seen in the four-way contrast among disyllables in English, which may have two stressed syllables, with primary stress either on the first or last and secondary stress or no stress on the other syllable. Only a two-way contrast is available in Dutch, German, and peninsular Scandinavian, due to a ban on adjacent stressed syllables, while the initial stress of Icelandic (and Faroese) leaves only one prosodic pattern, excluding recent loans. English, Dutch, and German distinguish primary and secondary stresses, while Scandinavian admits only one stress per prosodic word. This prosodic complexity gradient is reflected in the pitch accent distribution at the word level, most noticeably reflected in the effects of the Rhythm Rule, which are frequent in English and absent in Scandinavian. Additional features whose distribution relates to stress are the stød in Danish and the tone contrasts in Franconian and peninsular Scandinavian. In all the languages except Icelandic and Faroese, foot structure is intimately involved in morphological formations, in unison with segmental effects. These are explained by affix subcategorizations and prosodic annotations, either as inherent properties of the affix (e.g., pre-accenting) or as requirements made by the affix on the base (e.g., posttonic), while affix orderings are explained by level-ordered lexical phonology. The difference between (primary and secondary) stressed syllables and unstressed syllables plays a central role in word detection in English language processing.

In Swedish, words are associated with either of two pitch contours known as Accent 1 and Accent 2. Using a psychometric test, we investigated how listeners judge pitch accent violations while interpreting discourse. Forty native speakers of Central Swedish were presented with auditory dialogues, where test words were appropriately or inappropriately accented in a given context, and asked to judge the correctness of sentences containing the test words. Data indicated a statistically significant effect of wrong accent pattern on the correctness judgment. Both Accent 1 and Accent 2 violations interfered with the coherent interpretation of discourse and were judged as incorrect by the listeners. Moreover, there was a statistically significant difference in the perceived correctness between the accent patterns. Accent 2 violations led to a lower correctness score compared to Accent 1 violations, indicating that the listeners were more sensitive to pitch accent violations in Accent 2 words than in Accent 1 words. This result is in line with the notion that Accent 2 is marked and lexically represented in Central Swedish. Taken together, these findings indicate that listeners use both Accent 1 and Accent 2 to arrive at the correct interpretation of the linguistic input, while assigning varying degrees of relevance to them depending on their markedness.

The article discusses two explananda relating to tonogenesis in North Germanic: A) the origin of a tonal representation, B) the origin of a lexical distinction. Tradition has largely focused on B before A. I elucidate the assumptions of B > A hypothesis and argue that it fails to properly address the phonologization of lexical tones. The alternative hypothesis, A > B, primarily looks to account for the phonologization of lexical tone (i.e., A). The mechanism assumed is the same as is active today: reduction of secondary stress in the word-internal clash context with attendant reanalysis of a postlexical tone as lexical. A prosodic post-lexical rule – present in all dialects today – assigns the word tone of accent 2, which subsequently becomes lexicalized in a morpheme by morpheme manner. The developments of a postposed definite article and epenthetic vowels, processes that are always mentioned as instrumental in demonstrating the lexical distinction (B) do not directly bear on tonogenesis as such. The result is that A is the first explanandum.

Kompendiet har tre delar som anger tre huvudinriktningar. Den första delen handlar om satsanalys och frasanalys med stöd av scheman. Här lär du dig att systematiskt analysera svenskans meningsbyggnad med hjälp av satsschemat. Syntaktisk analys med satsschema är ett handfast sätt att koppla ihop vår språkliga intuition med konkret analys av satser och meningar. Schemat anger positioner för satsdelarna och positionernas ordning fungerar som stöd för analysen. När det uppstår frågor om olika satsdelar är det lätt att slå upp dem i de flesta grammatikböcker. Själva analyserandet och de olika test man kan använda för att identifiera satsdelars positioner har en medvetandehöjande effekt.

Den andra delen innehåller medvetandehöjande övningar riktade mot fonologi. Vår fonologiska kunskap är ofta omedveten, särskilt vad gäller prosodi (betoning, stavelseindelning, kvantitet, tonaccent, intonation). Samtidigt är det inte svårt att göra denna kunskap medveten med hjälp av enkla övningar. Det är vad du ägnar dig åt i del två.

Den tredje delen av kompendiet innehåller problemlösningsuppgifter. Genom att ägna dig åt grammatisk problemlösning blir du bra på att urskilja språkliga mönster. Grammatiken är till sin natur systematisk och det finns därför gott om mönster att upptäcka. Många av dem kan man läsa om i en grammatikbok men själva insikten om hur mönstren ser ut blir starkare och mer drabbande om man själv ådagalägger dem. Dessutom kan problemlösningsaktiviteten fungera som ett slag förberedelse för forskningsuppgifter. En annan poäng är att problemlösning gör det lättare att se vad som är regelbundet och vad som är oregelbundet i språket, vad som är generella mönster och vad som är mindre eller begränsade mönster.