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

from t1 through t8, the productions of all speakers are contained within
the norm, and, in a sense, define the norm. Like the CSw preaspirations,
the production of raised and fronted variants may be non-normative, but
are still not considered deviant in the linguistic community at large.
However, an outside observer, observing the language at t1 and t8, with
no information about the intervening stages, is likely to describe the
change as one in which /a/ has changed into /æ/ or //.
kHz
2.6
t 1
2.3
2.0
1.7
1.4
1.1
0.8
2.6
t 2
– 236 –
0.8
0.4
0.9
0.4
t 3 t 4
0.5
0.9
0.4
t 5 t 6
0.5
0.9
0.4
t 7 t 8
0.5
2.3
2.0
1.7
1.4
1.1
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9 kHz
Figure 5–1. A hypothetical example of an E/C vowel change. Each diamond represents
normalised mean F2 (abscissa) and F1 (ordinate) values for a single
speaker. The different graphs each represent a sample of a population of speakers
at a specific time tn, t1 representing the initial state observed and t8 the final
state observed. To make comparisons with the initial state (t1) easier, the mean
values at t1 are depicted as grey diamonds in each graph.