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

ted as voiceless unaspirated or postaspirated. The development of preaspiration
before sibilants is less consistent. Thus a Common Turkic sequence
of a short vowel and a sibilant does not always yield preaspiration,
but at the same time it seems clear that a Common Turkic sequence
of a long vowel and a sibilant never results in preaspiration.
In addition to Western Yugur, Roos also cites examples from both
Tuvan and Tofa 1 , which are fairly closely related to Western Yugur but
are spoken in Russia, in a region northwest of Mongolia. Both Tuvan and
Tofa have been reported to have “pharyngealised” consonants (cf., e.g.,
Schönig, 1998), and Roos points out that the distribution of pharyngealisation
in these languages corresponds very well with the distribution of
preaspiration in Western Yugur, so much so that they are bound to reflect
a common origin. In fact, Roos transcribes his Tuvan and Tofa examples
(again taken from several sources) as having preaspiration rather than
some kind of a pharyngealised or glottalised element. For example, for
Tuvan he offers the example t ‘grass’ with preaspiration, whereas, for
example, Johanson (1998:98) offers t, with a glottalised stop.
The sentiment that Tuvan and Tofa pharyngealisation is misrepresented
is echoed in Liberman (1982:126ff; 300f). Like Roos, Liberman
transcribes Tuvan examples with preaspiration rather than glottalisation.
Further, Liberman claims that what has been described as pharyngealisation
in the neighbouring language isolate Ket is also preaspiration. However,
I have no true first-hand information confirming that pharyngealisation
in Tuvan, Tofa and Ket is actually most appropriately described as
preaspiration.
Lastly, we turn to Halh Mongolian. Mongolian has two stop series,
usually referred to as “strong” and “weak” (corresponding to fortis and
lenis). Svantesson & Karlsson (2002) have shown that the “strong” stops
of Ulaanbaatar Halh (i.e., the variety spoken in the Mongolian capital,
Ulaanbaatar) are preaspirated. They also found that in sonorant + stop
sequences, the “strong” series is expressed through partial voicelessness
in the sonorant preceding a voiceless stop, while the “weak” series has a
fully voiced sonorant before a voiceless stop. According to Svantesson &
Karlsson, preaspiration in Ulaanbaatar Halh also occurs on word-initial
1 An alternate name is (Turkic) Karagas.
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