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

5 FROM OLD NORSE TO THE PRESENT
5.1 Introduction
One of the main aims of this last chapter is to attempt a reconstruction—
to the extent that this is feasible and possible—of the phonetic expression
of stops in Proto-Nordic (henceforth PN). PN is used here to refer to
the ON language during the period around 800 AD, at which time the
western–eastern split of North Germanic was already in progress. 1 This
reconstruction of the PN stop system has to take several facts into account:
1. Across the Scandinavian peninsula there is a non-normative tendency
for preaspiration in the realisation of word-medial fortis stops.
2. Concomitant with the production of word-medial fortis stops is a
fairly constant postaspiration, which, in CSw, is generally 20–40 ms
long 2 (cf. Ch. 4, section 4.2.4). In this sense, a tendency for
postaspiration is also present in the word-medial fortes.
3. In the area in which Nordic languages are spoken one finds both
normative preaspiration and normative postaspiration.
4. Where found, the detailed phonological distribution of normative
preaspiration varies greatly—none of today’s dialects have exactly
the same pattern of distribution.
5. From a typological perspective, preaspiration seems to be extremely
rare. By comparison, postaspiration is fairly common.
It is suggested here that the simplest way to account for all these
facts is to assume that the type of variation in the productions of fortis
1 The terminology regarding different time frames within ON is exceedingly confusing.
My use of Proto-Nordic complies with the terminology used in recent literature by
Scandinavian linguists (cf., e.g., Bandle, in press). In the present context, PN is largely
interchangeable with the more traditional term Old Scandinavian.
2 Measured as mVOT (cf. Ch. 4, section 4.1.2).
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