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

ation, voiceless nasality before fortis stops may have been a feature
employed by some (but not all) speakers as one of the correlates of the
production of sequences in which a fortis stop follows a nasal. Again, in
some areas—notably only the areas in which preaspiration becomes the
norm—the structure of phonetic variation changes, and voiced nasals
cease to be contained within the norm. As a result, voiceless or partially
voiceless nasals become the norm. In this account, we also have to
assume that, unlike preaspiration, this alleged non-normative PN voicelessness
in nasals has ceased to be part of the norm in the production of
such sequences in CSw. As before, no speaker is at any time required to
make any phonological reinterpretation. Instead, the limits of phonetic
variation in the expression of these sequences becomes reduced, as
voiced variants become less common. The development of postaspiration
instead of voiceless nasality, which we find in Northern Icelandic and the
Western Åland dialects, can be accommodated in a similar scenario.
Changes involving nasal + stop sequences in other languages may be
treated as E/C changes as well. In Bantu languages, reconstruction suggests
that Proto-Bantu had word-initial sequences of nasal and voiceless,
unaspirated stops. These are reflected in various ways in the modern descendants
of Proto-Bantu. For example, *nt can yield, for instance, [nt],
[t], [t] or [t], depending on language and context. (cf. e.g. Hinnebusch
1989, Huffman & Hinnebusch 1998). As in the Nordic languages, these
changes can be accommodated in a model that operates with the restructuring
of phonetic variation rather than phonological reinterpretation.
The basic assumption is that both a tendency for early voice offset
(causing voicelessness in the nasal) and a tendency for late voice onset
(causing postaspiration) were present as non-normative variants in the
production of these sequences. This could explain why the eventual
outcome varies so much in different languages and contexts.
5.5 Summary
Let us briefly recapitulate the scenario of the emergence of preaspiration
suggested here. First, it was suggested that the ultimate origins of
preaspirations have to do with vocal fold physiology, i.e. that a certain
type of larynx is more prone to causing anticipatory voice offset than are
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