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

instead as a preaspirated or an unaspirated retroflex stop, e.g. jh
‘heart’ and u ‘shirt.’
To summarise the development of ON stops in the Kökar dialect,
Table 3–10 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 at the end of section 3.1, where a similar table
for Icelandic is presented.
Table 3–10. Reflexes of ON stops in the Swedish Kökar dialect in terms of
voicing conditions. (Further explanation in text and discussion of Table 3–1).
ON examples 1 Kökar dialect
tala ~ dala +
mata = *
skip *
átta ~ odda
vanta ~ vanda (mnlr)
vakna (nlrjv) = *
keypti (pt and kt) =
vaxa (ks only) =
Finally, Karsten remarks that at the time of his investigation, only the
oldest generation conforms to the patterns of preaspiration described
above. Middle-aged speakers have started to apply preaspiration to stops
that have secondary lengthening (e.g., rhp ‘drop’) and the younger
generation has an increasing tendency to omit preaspiration altogether.
We now leave Kökar and consider several other locations, mainly to
the north and east of Kökar, where preaspiration has been reported to occur.
For these dialects the accounts are less detailed than for Kökar. According
to Hultman (1894:257, 1939:253ff), apart from Kökar, ON
pp, tt, kk are reflected as preaspirated in the parish of Kumlinge (i.e., the
island of Kumlinge itself, as well as several smaller surrounding islands),
which lies to the north of Kökar. Also, Hultman reports that east of
1 Glossary: tala ‘to speak,’ dala ‘valleys (gen.),’ mata ‘to feed,’ skip ‘ship,’ átta ‘eight,’
odda ‘points (obl.),’ vanta ‘to need,’ vanda ‘problem (obl.),’ vakna ‘to wake up
(intr.),’ keypti ‘bought,’ vaxa ‘to grow.’
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