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

others. In this way, some speakers may produce “fortuitous” preaspirations
that are short but salient. Further, it was suggested that a process of
change similar to that proposed by Ohala (1981, 1993) could account for
the introduction of preaspirated variants into speech production. Based
on the data on phonetic variation in CSw, it was suggested that such
preaspirated variants may not have been employed by all speakers, but
were still a part of the pronunciation norms. Thus, preaspiration was nonnormative,
i.e. the timing of voice offset relative to stop closure in the
production of fortis stops was—and still is in most of Scandinavia—
relatively free. The time at which this relative freedom in voice offset
became established is unknown, but in the scenario proposed here one
must assume that it was already the dominant pattern in PN.
At this stage, then, PN had the phonetic preconditions necessary for
preaspiration to become normative. This did occur in several areas. In
each area, the exact conditions under which the transition from nonnormative
to normative status differed, and consequently the phonological
distribution of preaspiration differs considerably between dialects.
Also, in some areas a typologically more usual development occurred
and postaspirations became normative. The change from non-normative
to normative preaspiration, it was proposed, involves nothing more than
the restructuring of phonetic variation such that variants without preaspiration
disappear from the pool of variation. Consequently, the relative
freedom in the timing of the laryngeal and oral gestures that had previously
been dominant becomes more limited.
5.6 Final remarks
In Ohala’s (1993:244) view, changes in norms do not, as such, constitute
sound change, precisely because “they do not necessarily involve
a change in pronunciation norm.” This point cannot be disputed, since
“sound change” is generally used to refer to phonological change rather
than phonetic change. However, in the E/C model, phonetic variation is
dynamic and partly governed by convention, and thus only partly a predictable
and fortuitous by-product of speech production. The data
reviewed in Chapter 4 clearly demonstrate this. Changes in phonetic
variation, for example an expansion or contraction in a given phonetic
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