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

The similarity in gestural organisation between sonorant voicelessness
and preaspiration is also striking. Both are achieved by timing voice
offset in such a way that it occurs before the stop closure. In a sequence
of vowel + stop, an early voice offset results in aspiration. In a sequence
of a sonorant + stop, the result is a (partially) voiceless sonorant.
This similarity can be assessed by considering the examples in Figures
2–2 and 2–3, which contain the author’s own productions of four
(Southern) Icelandic words, labba ‘walk,’ lappa ‘legs (gen. pl.),’ lamba
‘lambs (gen. pl.)’ and lampa ‘lamp (obl.)’ In Figure 2–2, a voiceless unaspirated
stop (upper spectrogram) is compared with a preaspirated one
(lower spectrogram). Beneath each spectrogram is a schematic representation
of the articulatory event. Disregarding durational differences, in
the upper, unaspirated example, voice offset and the onset of stop closure
occur (relatively) simultaneously, while in the lower, preaspirated example,
voice offset occurs approximately 75 ms before stop closure .
Now consider Figure 2–3, which compares a sequence of a voiced
nasal and a voiceless unaspirated stop with a sequence of a (mostly)
voiceless nasal and a voiceless unaspirated stop. Again, (disregarding
durational differences) we find that the essential difference between the
two is the relative timing of the supralaryngeal closure and voice offset.
In the upper example, voice offset and the onset of supralaryngeal (oral
and velic) closure occur almost simultaneously, while in the lower example,
voice offset occurs before the supralaryngeal closure is made.
Although these examples are from Icelandic, they are fairly typical
for the production of sonorant + stop sequences in isolated content words
in both Icelandic and Faroese. In both languages, a sequence of a
sonorant + lenis 1 stop is expressed as a voiced sonorant followed by an
voiceless unaspirated stop and a sequence of a sonorant + fortis stop is
expressed as a largely voiceless sonorant followed by an unaspirated
voiceless stop. The Northern Gräsö dialect of Swedish has a different
pattern, by which a sonorant + lenis stop is expressed as a voiced sonorant
followed by a voiced stop and a sonorant + fortis stop is expressed
as a partially voiceless sonorant followed by a voiceless unaspirated stop
(see, e.g., Figures 4–64 through 4–67).
1 See explanation for the use of the terms fortis and lenis in Ch. 3, section 3.1.
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