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Preaspiration in the Nordic Languages: Synchronic and Diachronic ...

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one h<strong>and</strong>, speakers have a tendency to devoice <strong>the</strong> f<strong>in</strong>al part of a vowel<br />

before a voiceless consonant (cf. Ch. 4, section 4.2.3.2). On <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r<br />

h<strong>and</strong>, speakers have a tendency to produce a friction noise at <strong>the</strong> end of<br />

long, close vowels. This can occur irrespective of whe<strong>the</strong>r or not a<br />

consonant follows. This latter tendency has been observed by Elert<br />

(1966; 1995), for example, who noted that <strong>the</strong> long, close vowels <strong>in</strong><br />

Swedish (/i/, /y/, /u/ <strong>and</strong> //) tend to end <strong>in</strong> a consonantal articulation,<br />

cit<strong>in</strong>g examples such as bi 1 bi ‘honey bee’ <strong>and</strong> ru roa ‘enterta<strong>in</strong>’<br />

(transcription adapted from Elert’s text). 2<br />

These phenomena, preaspiration <strong>and</strong> post-vocalic friction, do not always<br />

act <strong>in</strong>dependently of one ano<strong>the</strong>r. Particularly, when a sequence of<br />

a close vowel <strong>and</strong> a voiceless consonant is produced, a preaspiration will<br />

enhance any tendency for friction by <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> air velocity across<br />

<strong>the</strong> oral stricture.<br />

S<strong>in</strong>ce preaspiration <strong>and</strong> post-vocalic friction are non-normative <strong>in</strong><br />

CSw, <strong>the</strong>re are a number of ways <strong>in</strong> which a vowel–consonant juncture<br />

can be realised. For example, <strong>the</strong> word bit ‘bite, bit (noun)’ might be<br />

variously produced as [b] [b] [bh] [bç]. The first <strong>and</strong> last of<br />

<strong>the</strong>se examples probably represent <strong>the</strong> types of production that are most<br />

typical <strong>in</strong> CSw.<br />

The preaspiration tendency <strong>in</strong> CSw has been <strong>in</strong>vestigated fur<strong>the</strong>r by<br />

Gobl & Ní Chasaide (1988), who studied glottal abduction <strong>in</strong> sequences<br />

of vowel <strong>and</strong> fortis stop from a cross-l<strong>in</strong>guistic perspective. Their study<br />

<strong>in</strong>volved 11 Swedish subjects, 4 English subjects <strong>and</strong> 4 French subjects.<br />

They found that most of <strong>the</strong>ir 11 Swedish subjects <strong>and</strong> 2 out of 4 English<br />

subjects tended towards early glottal abduction before an unvoiced stop.<br />

The 2 rema<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g English subjects <strong>and</strong> all 4 French subjects seemed to<br />

synchronise glottal abduction <strong>and</strong> oral closure more tightly.<br />

Fant et al. (1991), study<strong>in</strong>g voice source characteristics, also observed<br />

<strong>the</strong> tendency <strong>in</strong> CSw towards pre-occlusive aspiration, <strong>and</strong> comment<br />

that this seems to be a feature more common <strong>in</strong> women’s speech<br />

1 The [ j ] <strong>in</strong> this case should be <strong>in</strong>terpreted as a fricative ra<strong>the</strong>r than an approximant.<br />

2 Similar tendencies can observed <strong>in</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r languages, e.g. French <strong>and</strong> Japanese.<br />

– 88 –

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