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In phonetics, preaspiration (sometimes spelled pre-aspiration) is a period of voicelessness or aspiration preceding the closure of a voiceless obstruent, basically equivalent to an -like sound preceding the obstruent. In other words, when an obstruent is preaspirated, the glottis is opened for some time before the obstruent closure. To mark preaspiration using the International Phonetic Alphabet, the diacritic for regular aspiration, , can be placed before the preaspirated consonant. However, prefer to use a simple cluster notation, e.g. instead of .
note that, at least in the case of Icelandic, preaspirated stops have a longer duration of aspiration than normally aspirated (post-aspirated) stops, comparable to clusters of +consonant in languages with such clusters. As a result, they view preaspiration as purely a distributional feature, indistinguishable phonetically and phonologically from clusters with , and prefer to notate preaspirated stops as clusters, e.g. Icelandic ''kappi'' "hero" rather than .
A distinction is 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 can be phonetically structured for those who use it, but it is non-obligatory, and may not appear with all speakers. Preaspirated consonants are typically in free variation with spirant-stop clusters, though they may also have a relationship (synchronically and diachronically) with long vowels or -stop clusters.
Preaspiration can take a number of different forms; while the most usual is glottal friction (an -like sound), the precise phonetic quality can be affected by the obstruent or the preceding vowel, becoming for example after ; other potential realizations include , voiceless vowels, and even .
Preaspiration is very unstable both synchronically and diachronically and is often replaced by a fricative or by a lengthening of the preceding vowel.
Elsewhere in the world, preaspiration occurs in Halh Mongolian, Western Yugur, and in several American indigenous languages, including dialects of Hopi language, Purepecha, and many languages of the Algonquian family (such as Cheyenne, Cree language, Ojibwe language, Fox language, and Miami–Illinois).
Furthermore, the dialects of Vágar, northern Streymoy and Eysturoy also have ungeminated preaspirated plosives and affricates (except after close vowels/diphthongs):
In several Sami languages, preaspirated stops/affricates contrast with lax voiceless stops, either due to denasalization of earlier clusters (e.g. *nt > ) or in connection to consonant gradation.
Its strength varies from area to area and can manifest itself as or or in areas with strong preaspiration as or . The occurrence of preaspiration follows a hierarchy of c > t > p; i.e. if a dialect has preaspiration with p, it will also have it in the other places of articulation. Preaspiration manifests itself as follows:Ó Dochartaigh, C. Survey of the Gaelic Dialects of Scotland I-V Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (1997)
There are numerous minimal pairs:
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