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

offset is perceptually salient when contrasted with a vowel with full
modal voice.
All the CSw subjects tend to produce friction in the transition phase
between a close front vowel and an occlusion. In Figure 4–17, MP produces
the sequence djupa viken ‘deep bay.’ In the first word, there is a
rapid voice offset before the stop closure that does not cause any breathiness
in the vowel. In the second word, the narrow escape channel of the
close front vowel causes a friction noise to be produced before the closure
of the prevelar stop. The narrow escape channel causes air velocity
to increase, which facilitates voice offset. Thus a brief interval of breathiness
may be present, which is obscured by the friction noise. It should be
noted that such intervals of voiced friction count as preaspiration in the
measurements of the CSw data.
4.2.3.5 Postsonorant fortis stops
In the CSw data, fortis stops in word-medial, postsonorant position
(e.g. in words such as valpar ‘puppies,’ vinter ‘winter’ and björk ‘birch’)
are fairly rare. Sequences of nasal + fortis stop are the most common,
and the data contain a total of 66 such occurrences in stressed syllables in
content words (see Table 4–8). Data from the function words inte ‘not’
and sånt ‘such things’ are not included. For lateral + fortis stop
sequences, there are 39 such occurrences (here the function word alltså
‘so, that is’ and the phrase helt enkelt ‘simply’ are excluded). For r-sound
+ fortis stop there are 21 such occurrences in the data (there are no
function words in the data with such sequences).
Table 4–8. Frequency of occurrence of sonorant + fortis stop sequences
occurring after stressed vowel in content words for the four CSw subjects.
Sequences of r-sound + fortis stop do not include /rt/ sequences, which are
instead treated as postalveolar stops.
GT CK MP FS Total
Nasal + fortis stop 8 20 20 18 66
Lateral + fortis stop 6 12 10 11 39
R-sound + fortis stop 1 3 11 6 21
Total 15 35 41 35 126
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