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

these terms are used mostly in conjunction with aspiration (pre- and
postaspiration), but ideally should be generally applicable in phonetics.
Still, the definition will undoubtedly show weaknesses in some situations,
since the terms it employs, “phonetic trait” and “dialect,” are themselves
not always easily defined.
Nonetheless, the distinction between normative and non-normative
traits has been found useful in discussing aspiration. The linguistic
groups focused on here are defined on the basis of geographical and linguistic
criteria, similar to those used to establish “traditional” dialectal
divisions. These groups are Southern Icelandic, Northern Icelandic, Tórshavn
Faroese, Northern Gräsö dialect, Central Standard Åland dialect
and Central Standard Swedish (henceforth CSw).
In all these dialects, the fortis stop series has normative postaspiration
in certain contexts, which vary slightly depending on dialect. Common
to all is postaspiration on fortis stops in word-initial position and
before stressed vowels. These stops can be said to be normatively postaspirated,
since a failure to aspirate properly would be interpreted as deviant
(e.g., as with a foreign accent) by the native speakers of the dialect.
They contrast with lenis stops, which lack postaspiration (in the corresponding
positions) and which may be voiced or voiceless depending on
dialect. This yields minimal pairs such as:
Faroese [la] 1
[la] (‘to speak’ vs ‘to wane’)
Icelandic [p] [p] (‘pair’ vs. ‘bar’)
CSw [œm] [œm] (‘to empty’ vs. ‘to judge’)
[kn] [n] (‘hurricane’ vs. ‘organ’)
The two stop series are traditionally referred to as fortis and lenis,
and in the absence of unifying phonetic criteria for these stop contrasts (a
fact that becomes even more evident in the following paragraph), the traditional
terminology will be adhered to.
Word-internally, especially intervocalically after stressed vowels, the
expression of fortis stops in these dialects is much more complex. Some
1 The four-spoked asterisk is used to indicate that the example being transcribed does
not occur in the recorded data, but is an “invention” of the author. This is explained in
more detail in section 3.1.
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