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

discussion of possible reasons for this). One of the major dialectal
differences is the division between Northern and Southern Icelandic.
This difference rests almost entirely on the way in which ON wordmedial
fortis stops are reflected.
As discussed above (cf. Ch. 3, section 3.1), the ON word-medial
pp, tt, kk are reflected as preaspirated in both Southern and Northern Icelandic.
It has also been noted that in Southern Icelandic the ON wordmedial
p, t, k are reflected as unaspirated, and that l, m, n + p, t, k sequences
are reflected as a voiceless sonorant followed by a voiceless
unaspirated stop. In Northern Icelandic, however, word-medial p, t, k are
postaspirated and l, m, n + p, t, k are reflected as a sequence of a voiced
sonorant followed by a postaspirated stop. 1 In both Northern and
Southern Icelandic, ON p, t, k + l, n clusters are reflected as preaspirated.
However, ON p, t, k + r, j, v clusters are reflected as sequences of a
voiceless stop followed by a voiceless fricative. In Southern Icelandic,
the fricative tends to be mostly voiced. Most of these differences are
indicated in Table 3–1. Further descriptions of the phonological distribution
of aspiration in Icelandic stop production are found in, for
example, Dahlstedt (1958), Thráinsson (1978) and Þráinsson & Árnason
(1992).
Discussions of the production of Northern Icelandic—both here and
in the literature—are largely based on impressionistic observations.
Some phonetic investigations have been carried out, by, e.g., Einarsson
(1927), Pétursson (1974), Rögnvaldsson (1980) and Indriðason et al.
(1991). The last is the most extensive of these investigations, and compares
the production of word-medial stops for six Northern and six
Southern Icelandic speakers. The speech materials used by Indriðason et
al. consisted of disyllabic words embedded in frame sentences. The
words tested were 2 :
1 Actually, -lt- is an exception, since homomorphemic -lt- is produced as a voiceless
lateral followed by a postaspirated stop in the Northern dialect (cf. Jónsson 1982).
Note also that -ðk- sequences are produced with a voiced fricative (or approximant)
followed by a stop in Northern Icelandic, but as a voiceless fricative followed by a
stop in Southern Icelandic.
2 Glossary: gabba ‘to fool,’ gapa ‘to gape,’ happa ‘luck, chance (gen pl.),’ gadda ‘tack
(acc. pl.),’ gata ‘road,’ hattur ‘hat,’ hagga ‘to budge,’ haka ‘chin,’ hakka ‘to hack,’
haggi ‘budge (1sg. conj.),’ haki ‘pick’ and bakki ‘bank, hill.’
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