Preaspiration

In phonetics, preaspiration is a period of voicelessness or aspiration preceding the closure of a voiceless obstruent,cite web |url=http://www.anst.uu.se/pehel169/research.htm |title=Research Interests |accessdate=2007-03-07 |author=Helgason, Pétur |publisher=Uppsala University] basically equivalent to an IPA| [h] -like sound preceding the obstruent. In other words, when an obstruent is preaspirated, the glottis is opened for some time before the obstruent closure. [Stevens and Hajek (2004:334)] To mark preaspiration using the International Phonetic Alphabet, generally the diacritic for regular aspiration (a superscript "h", IPA| [ʰ] ), is placed before the preaspirated consonant.

Preaspiration is comparatively uncommon across languages of the world,Silverman (2003)] and is claimed by some to not be phonemically contrastive in any language. [Mechtild (2002:33)] A distinction is therefore often made between so-called "normative" and "non-normative" preaspiration: in a language with normative preaspiration of certain voiceless obstruents, the preaspiration is obligatory even though it is not a distinctive feature; in a language with non-normative preaspiration, the preaspiration is non-obligatory, and may not appear. [Gordeeva and Scobbie (2004)] [McRobbie-Utasi (2003:1)] Preaspirated consonants are usually allophonic variants of some class of "fortis" ("strong") consonants when they occur after a vowel (generally a stressed vowel).

Preaspiration can take a number of different forms; while the most usual is glottal friction (an IPA| [h] -like sound), the friction can assimilate in point of articulation with the obstruent or the preceding vowel, becoming for example IPA| [ç] after close vowels; [Stevens and Hajek (2004:334-35)] other potential realizations include IPA| [x] and even IPA| [f] . [McRobbie-Utasi (1991:77)]

Preaspiration is perhaps best-known from Scandinavian languages--most prominently in Icelandic and Faroese, but it occurs in some dialects of Norwegian and Swedish as well. It also occurs, among other languages, in Scottish Gaelic, Halh Mongolian, some Sami languages, and in several American Indian languages, including dialects of Cree, Ojibwe, Fox, and Hopi. [cite web |url=http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/pies/pdfs/IEC/IEC15/Riessler_M_2003.pdf |title=On the Origin of Preaspiration in North Germanic |format=PDF |accessdate=2007-03-07 |author=Rießler, Michael] [McRobbie-Utasi (1991, 2003), Svantesson (2003)]

Some examples of preaspirated plosives from Icelandic (where they occur only after stressed vowels): [Silverman (2003:582)]

*"kappi" IPA| [ˈkʰaʰpi] , "hero"
*"hattur" IPA| [ˈhaʰtʏr] , "hat"
*"þakka" IPA| [ˈθaʰka] , "thank" audio|is-þakka.ogg|listen

Similar examples from Faroese:

*"kappi" IPA| [ˈkʰaʰpə] , "cape"
*"hattur" IPA| [ˈhaʰtʊr] , "hat"
*"takka" IPA| [ˈtʰaʰka] , "thank"

In Huautla Mazatec, preaspirates can occur word-initially, perhaps uniquely among languages which contain preaspirates: [Silverman (2003:590-91)]

*IPA| [ʰti] - "fish"
*IPA| [ʰtse] - "a sore"
*IPA| [ʰtʃi] - "small"
*IPA| [ʰka] - "stubble"

Preaspiration is very unstable and is likely to be soon replaced by a fricative or by lengthening of the preceding vowel during a language's development. One possible way for it to originally arise is from the lenition of a fricative such as [s] preceding a stop. [Silverman (2003:592, 595)] Other origins are possible, with e.g. gemination and preglottalization proposed for the Scandinavian languages.

ee also

*Aspiration
*List of phonetic topics
*Phonation

Notes

References

*cite journal |author=Gordeeva, Olga, and Scobbie, James M. |date=2004 |title=Non-Normative Preaspiration of Voiceless Fricatives in Scottish English: a Comparison with Swedish Preaspiration |journal=Colloquium of the British Association of Academic Phoneticians, University of Cambridge |url=http://www.qmuc.ac.uk/ssrc/pubs/GORDEEVA_SCOBBIE_2004_BAAP.ppt |format=PPT |accessdate=2007-03-07

*cite journal |author=McRobbie-Utasi, Zita |date=1991 |title=Preaspiration in Skolt Sámi |journal=SFU Working Papers in Linguistics |volume=1 |pages=77–87, ed. P. McFetridge |url=http://www.sfu.ca/~mcrobbie/SkPreasp%20.pdf |format=PDF |accessdate=2007-03-07

*cite web |url=http://www.sfu.ca/~mcrobbie/Honti.pdf |format=PDF |title=Normative Preaspiration in Skolt Sami in Relation to the Distribution of Duration in the Disyllabic Stress-Group |date=2003 |accessdate=2007-03-07 |author=———

*cite journal |author=Silverman, Daniel |date=2003 |title=On the Rarity of Pre-Aspirated Stops |journal=Journal of Linguistics |volume=39 |pages=575–598 |url=http://journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=187998 |format=PDF |accessdate=2007-03-08 |doi=10.1017/S002222670300210X

*cite journal |author=Stevens, Mary, and Hajek, John |date=2004 |title=How Pervasive is Preaspiration? Investigating Sonorant Devoicing in Sienese Italian |journal=Tenth Australian International Conference on Speech Science & Technology, Macquarie University, Sydney |pages=334–39 |url=http://www.assta.org/sst/2004/proceedings/papers/sst2004-406.pdf |format=PDF |accessdate=2007-03-07

*cite journal |author=Svantesson, Jan-Olof |date=2003 |title=Preaspiration in Old Mongolian? |journal=Umeå University, Department of Philosophy and Linguistics. PHONUM |volume=9 |pages=5–8 |url=http://www.ling.umu.se/fonetik2003/pdf/005.pdf |format=PDF |accessdate=2007-03-07

*cite journal |author=Tronnier, Mechtild |date=2002 |title=Preaspiration in Southern Swedish Dialects |journal=Proceedings of Fonetik 2002. Speech, Music and Hearing Quarterly Progress and Status Report |volume=44 |pages=33–36 |url=http://www.ling.lu.se/persons/Mechtild/papers/fon02.pdf |format=PDF |accessdate=2007-03-07