Abstract:
The study investigates the subphonemic feature of pre-aspiration in Norwegian. Pre-aspiration occurs between a vowel and a following voiceless stop consonant. Ten subjects were recorded (five females, five males), producing six repetitions of 36 Norwegian nonsense words (18 monosyllables and 18 disyllables). The acoustic analysis of the speech material was carried out using the Signalyze 3.12 software program. Previously, it has been proposed that pre-aspiration occurs in languages that have no voice/voiceless opposition in the phonetic sense [H. Thrainsson, Nord. J. Linguist. 1, 3--54 (1978)]. However, Norwegian does have a phonetic distinction between voiced and voiceless stops. The study will show that pre-aspiration is present in Norwegian VC[-voice]-rhymes. Norwegian also displays a phonemic opposition between V:C- and VC:-rhymes, an opposition manifested phonetically in segment durations [Behne and Moxness, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 95, 2979(A) (1994)]. The present study will show that duration of pre-aspiration is greater in VC:-rhymes as opposed to V:C-rhymes, and that pre-aspiration is greater in disyllables as opposed to monosyllables. The conclusion drawn is that pre-aspiration may serve as a redundant feature to length, signaling voicelessness of the stop consonant in Norwegian VC[voice]-rhymes.