Quantity and laryngeal contrasts in Norwegian

This paper reports on the results of an investigation of the fortis-lenis contrast in stops and the complementary quantity contrast in Norwegian and compares these same contrasts in two dialects of Swedish. The data show that in initial position one series of stops has consistently long-lag Voice Onset Time (VOT) and this series is also voiceless in post-vocalic position, often with some preaspiration. The other series can be produced with either prevoicing or short-lag VOT in initial position and is almost always fully voiced in post-vocalic position. These results support the claim that both phonological features [voice] and [spread glottis] are active in Norwegian. The quantity contrast (VC: vs. V:C) was robust for all speakers, but the durational difference between the two quantity patterns was greater for females than for males. Overall the durational difference between the two quantity types in Norwegian was found to be similar to that in Central Standard Swedish, but not as great as in Fenno-Swedish. a Linguistics Department University of Iowa, Iowa City, 52240 USA email: [email protected] tel: 319-335-0212 fax: 319-353-2392 b Department of Language and Communication Studies Norwegian University of Science and Technology N-7491 Trondheim Norway email: [email protected] tel: +47-73-596527 fax: +47-73-596119