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

On the whole, the fortis vs. lenis contrast in the Gräsö dialect is
phonetically similar to the fortis vs. lenis contrast in Faroese. In effect,
this contrast does not really involve the stop occlusion itself, but instead
voicing conditions in the preceding segment. This is the case irrespective
of the origin of these stops. For example, lenis stops in Icelandic and
Faroese VC syllables have their origins in ON fortis stops. In the Gräsö
dialect, the lenes in VC syllables go back to ON voiced fricatives. Despite
this, there is no obvious difference in the production of these stops
in the two languages. In both cases, the preceding vowel has modal voice
throughout, the stop occlusion is voiceless and the release is fairly short
with little or no postaspiration.
4.4.4 Preaspiration duration — SWEDIA 2000 data
In this section, the fortis stop production of six male Gräsö speakers
is analysed with regard to duration. The data form part of the SWEDIA
2000 database (Bruce et al. 1999), which contains recordings from more
than 100 Swedish dialects (see also Ch. 3, section 3.6). The data analysed
here consist of isolated monosyllabic and disyllabic target words, seven
with VC syllables (e.g., gata ‘street’) and six with VC syllables (e.g.,
flytta ‘to move’). The test words were elicited verbally by an interviewer
without naming the target word. Once the subjects identified and uttered
the target word, they repeated it up to five times. The subjects are categorised
into “older” and “younger” speakers, the older speakers being
more than 55 years of age and the younger between 20–35 years of age.
The data were segmented according to the procedures outlined in section
4.1.2.
The range of preaspiration durations in these target words for the six
subjects are indicated in the box-and-whisker plots in Figure 4–85 (see
also Table 4–15). It is apparent that the three older males had considerable
preaspirations in both VC and VC syllables, although the durations
were shorter in VC syllables. Of the younger subjects, only YM1 had
durations comparable with those of the older subjects. The durations of
the remaining two subjects, especially YM3, were far shorter.
– 180 –