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

For word-medial contexts data are available from all four subjects. In
VC syllables, the three subjects who produced unscripted speech have
mean preaspiration durations ranging from 8 to 11 ms, while subject ES
has a mean duration of 19 ms. In VC syllables the unscripted speech
subjects have mean preaspiration durations of 8–17 ms, which are shorter
than ES’s mean duration of 26 ms.
As regards voicing conditions preceding the occlusion phase in
sequences of nasal + stop, there is little indication of voiceless nasality.
Therefore, no analysis of the timing relations in voice offset and stop
occlusion is provided here.
4.5.3.6 Summary and discussion
It was shown in section 4.2.4 that the Central Standard Swedish
(CSw) speakers have a much greater difference in duration between
word-initial and word-medial postaspirations than the Western Åland
subjects. In the CSw data (cf. section 4.2), word-initial stops (tennis type
words) have mean postaspiration durations ranging from 44 to 58 ms.
Word-medial stops (båten and vatten type words) have mean postaspiration
durations of 20–32 ms. In a third group of words, the taverna type,
which have a word-initial stop in a lexically unstressed syllable, the initial
stop has mean postaspiration durations ranging from 40 to 58 ms. 1 In
CSw, therefore, word-initial position as such induces postaspiration in
stop consonants (cf. discussion in 4.2.4). The fact that a syllable is unstressed
does not, in itself, lead to unaspirated stop production.
In the Western Åland data, we observe relatively small differences
between postaspiration in word-initial and word-medial stops, at least for
the unscripted speech data. Certainly, these differences are much smaller
than in CSw. Unlike CSw, these durational differences in the Western
Åland dialect can be attributed to stress differences. In fact, the duration
of word-medial postaspiration in the Western Åland data seems to be directly
comparable to that in CSw taverna type words, i.e. word-initial
stops in unstressed syllables.
1 Words referred to as taverna type words in the CSw data occur very infrequently in
the Western Åland data. Therefore, such words are not discussed specifically for the
Western Åland dialect.
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