Preaspiration in the Nordic Languages: Synchronic and Diachronic ...
Preaspiration in the Nordic Languages: Synchronic and Diachronic ... Preaspiration in the Nordic Languages: Synchronic and Diachronic ...
Oral pass. Velum Voicing Icel. lamba: l m p Oral pass. Velum Voicing Icel. lamba: l p Figure 2–3. Spectrograms and schematic articulatory representations of the production of a nasal + stop sequence with (lower) and without (upper) voicelessness in the nasal. The words are the author’s own productions of Southern Icelandic lamba ‘lambs (gen.)’ and lampa ‘lamp (obl.)’ – 20 –
The fact that both preaspiration and sonorant voicelessness are the result of a simple gestural asynchrony, together with the fact that the languages best known for having preaspiration also have corresponding voiceless sonorants, makes it tempting to see sonorant devoicing and preaspiration as two sides of the same coin. Attempts to link the two phonologically have assumed that either underlying segments or features are processed by rule to produce an appropriate output. 1 Note that the terminology traditionally used to refer to voiceless sonorants before fortis stops is “sonorant devoicing,” which implies a generative process. A nasal that “should be” voiced undergoes devoicing when it occurs in a particular context. In the present work, it is not deemed necessary to assume that either preaspiration or sonorant voicelessness is a result of processing in the speakers’ minds that uses input forms to produce output forms. The focus here is on the historical aspects, to account for the phonetic changes that appear to bring forth preaspiration and sonorant voicelessness from nothing. It will be shown that when phonetic detail is considered, one finds that the seeds of such a change may be present long before the change is manifested in terms of normative pronunciation. We shall also see that in the languages and dialects considered, preaspiration and sonorant voicelessness manifest themselves in different ways and different phonological contexts to such a degree that statements in segment- and feature-based formal phonological frameworks do not serve to simplify or clarify any issues. 2.3 Normative and non-normative traits In this work, a distinction is made between normative and non-normative phonetic traits. These terms can be explained in the following way: If the absence (or presence) of a particular phonetic trait leads to a pronunciation that is considered deviant by the speakers of a given dialect, that trait can be classified as normative (or normatively absent) in that dialect. Conversely, a trait whose absence or presence does not lead to deviant pronunciation can be classified as non-normative in that dialect. Here, 1 For example, Thráinsson’s (1978) account of preaspiration and sonorant devoicing. – 21 –
- Page 1: Preaspiration in the Nordic Languag
- Page 4 and 5: PhD dissertation November 2002 Depa
- Page 7 and 8: CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..........
- Page 9: 4.4.4 Preaspiration duration — SW
- Page 12 and 13: the following pages. Thanks also to
- Page 14 and 15: ported, but these should only be ta
- Page 16 and 17: Finally, in Chapter 5, the patterns
- Page 18 and 19: lock (ibid:267; boldface mine). Wea
- Page 20 and 21: closure, decay time of the glottal
- Page 23 and 24: 2 DEFINITION AND TYPOLOGY 2.1 Defin
- Page 25 and 26: and Finnish the word [lhti] ‘bay
- Page 27 and 28: turn into ChV sequences in which V
- Page 29 and 30: 2.2 Linking preaspiration and sonor
- Page 31: The similarity in gestural organisa
- Page 35 and 36: have normative preaspiration, other
- Page 37 and 38: usually expressed as unaspirated an
- Page 39 and 40: while clusters have developed into
- Page 41 and 42: ted as voiceless unaspirated or pos
- Page 43 and 44: y a middle-aged male speaker. In bo
- Page 45 and 46: ut this is not true of the “stand
- Page 47 and 48: 2.6 Auditory constraints and the ra
- Page 49 and 50: The second criticism of Bladon’s
- Page 51 and 52: in discharge rates in the auditory
- Page 53: number of languages that possess se
- Page 56 and 57: and Lappic (Finno-Ugric). It has be
- Page 58 and 59: For the sake of simplicity and luci
- Page 60 and 61: ‘apple,’ [vh] vatnið ‘the wa
- Page 62 and 63: Table 3-1. Reflexes of Old Norse st
- Page 64 and 65: In the Northern dialect, V is sligh
- Page 66 and 67: Pind’s experiments as well as the
- Page 68 and 69: In Area 2, where Tórshavn is situa
- Page 70 and 71: in VC syllables in their speech, ju
- Page 72 and 73: Table 3-4. Reflexes of ON stops in
- Page 74 and 75: long vowel followed by a preaspirat
- Page 76 and 77: grams), with the occasional aid of
- Page 78 and 79: quantity system instead of the ON f
- Page 80 and 81: ON flytja). There are no examples o
Oral pass.<br />
Velum<br />
Voic<strong>in</strong>g<br />
Icel. lamba: l m p <br />
Oral pass.<br />
Velum<br />
Voic<strong>in</strong>g<br />
Icel. lamba: l p <br />
Figure 2–3. Spectrograms <strong>and</strong> schematic articulatory representations of <strong>the</strong><br />
production of a nasal + stop sequence with (lower) <strong>and</strong> without (upper) voicelessness<br />
<strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> nasal. The words are <strong>the</strong> author’s own productions of Sou<strong>the</strong>rn<br />
Icel<strong>and</strong>ic lamba ‘lambs (gen.)’ <strong>and</strong> lampa ‘lamp (obl.)’<br />
– 20 –