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

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<strong>the</strong>se speakers will henceforth be referred to as <strong>the</strong> Western Ål<strong>and</strong> dialect.<br />

4.5.3.1 Method <strong>and</strong> subjects<br />

The Western Ål<strong>and</strong> material consists of two different sets of data.<br />

The first set, which comprises subjects MG (male), AJ (female) <strong>and</strong> NK<br />

(female), was obta<strong>in</strong>ed from <strong>the</strong> SOFI archives (cf. section 4.1.1.2). 1<br />

These record<strong>in</strong>gs consist of <strong>in</strong>terviews with Western Ål<strong>and</strong> subjects carried<br />

out <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> 1960’s. This material, <strong>the</strong>refore, is unscripted (spontaneous)<br />

speech. The sound quality of <strong>the</strong> unscripted data is generally fairly<br />

good, although some echo is present <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> record<strong>in</strong>gs. Levels of background<br />

noise are generally low, <strong>and</strong> occur only <strong>in</strong>termittently.<br />

The unscripted data were transliterated <strong>and</strong> word-labelled partly by<br />

<strong>the</strong> author <strong>and</strong> partly by a native Swedish speaker (a student at <strong>the</strong> Stockholm<br />

University Department of L<strong>in</strong>guistics ). Segmentation was carried<br />

out by <strong>the</strong> author <strong>in</strong> accordance with <strong>the</strong> criteria specified <strong>in</strong> section<br />

4.1.2. For subject MG, approximately 12 m<strong>in</strong>utes of un<strong>in</strong>terrupted<br />

speech 2 , conta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g 2528 words, were analysed; for subject AJ 18 m<strong>in</strong>utes,<br />

conta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g 3952 words; <strong>and</strong> for NK 21 m<strong>in</strong>utes, conta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g 4023<br />

words. A rough estimate <strong>in</strong>dicates that MG utters 4.76 syllables per<br />

second, AJ 4.99 <strong>and</strong> NK 4.55 (cf. section 4.2.1 on how this estimate was<br />

obta<strong>in</strong>ed).<br />

The second set of Western Ål<strong>and</strong> data consists of a record<strong>in</strong>g of a<br />

female speaker <strong>in</strong> her late forties, ES, read<strong>in</strong>g a list of 43 fairly short<br />

sentences conta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g target words with stops <strong>in</strong> certa<strong>in</strong> contexts. The<br />

subject read <strong>the</strong> list twice. The record<strong>in</strong>gs were made <strong>in</strong> a sound-treated<br />

room, us<strong>in</strong>g a Brüel & Kjær 4145 microphone <strong>and</strong> recorded directly on a<br />

PC us<strong>in</strong>g a SoundBlaster Live sound card <strong>and</strong> CoolEdit 2000 software.<br />

Segmentation (as specified <strong>in</strong> section 4.1.2) of stop productions was<br />

carried out by <strong>the</strong> author. The speak<strong>in</strong>g rate was estimated to be 4.97<br />

syllables per second, but s<strong>in</strong>ce <strong>the</strong> structure of <strong>the</strong> read speech material<br />

aspiration tendencies. Fur<strong>the</strong>rmore, speakers <strong>in</strong> Mariehamn (not far east of Gottby) do<br />

not appear to postaspirate, but <strong>the</strong> available <strong>in</strong>formation is less precise on this.<br />

1 The SOFI references to <strong>the</strong>se record<strong>in</strong>gs are as follows: MG = Bd 2180; AJ =<br />

Bd 2199B–Bd 2200A; NK = Bd 2196–Bd 2197A.<br />

2 Cf. section 4.2.1.<br />

– 190 –

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