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

Table 4–1. Overview of the data on word-initial fortis stops analysed for the
four CSw subjects.
GT CK MP FS Total
Stop closure 44 86 154 127 411
Fricative 2 2 17 5 26
Laughter etc. 3 2 6 9 20
Total 49 90 177 141 457
In total, then, 46 cases (approximately 10% of the data) were excluded
from the durational analysis. This is a fairly low figure given that
the data are from spontaneous speech. One can conclude that the CSw
subjects in this experiment generally tended to produce word-initial stops
with a full stop closure.
4.2.2.2 Postaspiration duration
The duration of postaspiration (Po), measured as the time lag from
release to modal voice onset (mVOT; cf. section 4.1.2), varied considerably.
As indicated in the box-and-whisker plot (Figure 4–4), the measurements
ranged between approximately 10–90 ms (disregarding outliers
and far outliers), with the bulk of the variation contained within the interval
30–65 ms.
In Table 4–2, the data on word-initial fortis stops have been divided
into three main groups with regard to the placement of the stop. First,
there are content words with primary lexical stress (e.g. palmer ‘palm
trees,’ tennis ‘tennis’ and kust ‘coast’). Second, there are function words
with primary lexical stress (e.g. på ‘on,’ till ‘to,’ kan ‘can, is able to’).
And third, there are lexically unstressed syllables in content words (e.g.
parasollet ‘the parasol,’ taverna ‘pub,’ kompassros ‘compass rose’;
underscores indicate the syllable with primary lexical stress). These three
groups will henceforth be referred to as tennis type, till type and taverna
type words respectively.
On average, initial stops in tennis type words had longer postaspirations
than in till type words (see Table 4–2). A two-tailed t-test indicates
that this is significant for 3 out of 4 subjects, FS, CK and MP (p < 0.02,
p < 0.01 and p < 0.001 respectively). However, the difference was not
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