Sound structure, compensatory mechanisms, and understanding in dialogue

Danish has been shown to be a difficult language to learn and to understand, due for instance to high degrees of phonetic reduction (Bleses et al., 2008, 2011). However Danes still seem to understand each other. How does this work?
This project combines conversation analysis and speech signal processing to investigate the compensatory strategies employed by Danish speakers in relation to phonetic reduction in a cross-linguistic perspective.
As an ‘exotic’ case, the study of Danish can inform current general discussions about the relation between language structure, cognition and social interactions. Rather than universal systems, our approach will conceive of cognition and language as complex adaptive systems, building on each other’s constraints and mutually compensating for each other.