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

stop sequences that remain to be discussed are ON lp and lk as well as
sequences of nasal + fortis stop. Sequences of these types have a voiceless
sonorant only in the Vemdalen and Hede dialects. 1 Thus, for the
nasals we have pe ‘lamp,’ fe ‘fifth,’ veer ‘winter,’
bru ‘brown (neut.),’ be ‘the bench’ and bk ‘bench.’ The
laterals are voiceless flaps, e.g. jpe ‘help’ and fk ‘people.’
Finally, Table 3–8 summarises the development of ON stops in the
Härjedalen dialects as they are described by Reitan, and provides an
overview of the way ON stops in different contexts are reflected in terms
of voicing conditions. The conventions used in the table are explained in
section 3.1 (cf. Table 3–1).
3.5.2 Arjeplog
Wallström (1943) describes the dialect of Arjeplog in Northern
Sweden. According to his description, a distinguishing mark of the dialect
is its collection of preaspirated stops. In Wallström’s account, fortis
stops are preaspirated if preceded by a long vowel, e.g. rehp ‘rope,’
søht ‘sweet’ and hk ‘leak.’ Preaspiration occurs more sporadically
after short vowels and in his standardised phonetic transcription of
the dialect only the preaspirations occurring after long vowels are transcribed.
Also, according to Wallström’s description, all sonorants are
voiceless before fortis stops. The voicelessness appears to be complete
and not partial as in many other dialects. Wallström’s examples include
vkn ‘which,’ vr ‘winter’ and bk ‘bench.’
In a recent study of the Arjeplog dialect (using data from the
SWEDIA 2000 database; see Ch. 4, section 4.4.4), Stölten (2002)
showed that the female speakers of the Arjeplog dialect had longer preaspirations
than males. Using the same data, Wretling, Strangert and
Schaeffler (2002) investigated the production of fortis stops in the
1 This is according to Reitan (1930:67). Westin (1897) says that voiceless nasals are
found in the western part of Härjedalen, as well as Linsäll, which might indicate that
voicelessness in nasals has receded in its spread during the 30 odd years that separate
Westin’s and Reitan’s studies. Also, Reitan is convinced that voicelessness in sonorants
in the dialects of Vemdalen and Hede is a recent phenomenon, and he remarks
that he finds that it is particularly noticeable in young informants. However, as we
have seen, voicelessness in nasals in the Vemdalen dialect was described by Westin
more than 30 years earlier, which undermines Reitan’s claim (cf. Hansson, 1997:54).
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