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

observed phonological distribution of normative preaspiration. Preaspiration
durations in CSw are considerably longer in VC and VCC syllables
than in VC syllables (see Ch. 4, section 4.2.3.2). If PN had non-normative
preaspirations with similar durational characteristics, preaspiration
would have been more likely to become normative in syllables with
geminate stops than with singletons. This is what we observe. In fact,
preaspiration in geminate stops is the only feature common to all the dialects
with normative preaspiration described in Chapter 3.
Also, the fact that we find both normative preaspiration and normative
postaspiration in the Nordic languages is most readily accounted for
as a consequence of having phonetic preconditions that can give rise to
both types of development. If both preaspiration and postaspiration were
part of the phonetic variation inherent in the production of word-medial
fortis stops, it is not unexpected that both preaspiration and postaspiration
could become established speech norms in some areas. Assuming,
instead, that PN speakers neither tended to preaspirate nor postaspirate
such stops makes it difficult to explain how they later came to be
reflected as preaspirated in at least seven geographically distinct locations.
If there was no tendency to preaspirate, it is highly unlikely that
such a typologically unusual stop development would have occurred independently
in seven different places over a period of a few hundred
years. And, as pointed out earlier, assuming that the stops were originally
postaspirated is just as unlikely from a typological point of view.
Thus, as regards the ON word-medial fortis stops, both the singletons
and the geminates, it seems most likely that their phonetic expression in
PN involved an element of preaspiration. It has been argued that this preaspiration
was non-normative, very much like it still appears to be in
most parts of the Scandinavian peninsula. This has a bearing on the phonetic
interpretation of the PN lenis stops. If the word-medial fortes had
non-normative preaspiration, it is less likely that speakers generally
tended to produce the word-medial lenes (which only occurred as geminates)
as fully voiceless, since this would have entailed a poor perceptual
distinction between the two series (i.e., some speakers would have produced
the word medial fortes as voiceless unaspirated, and the wordmedial
lenes as voiceless unaspirated as well). Thus it is proposed that
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