page_title: Preaspiration
section_title: Scottish Gaelic
hierarchical_section_title: Preaspiration / Examples / Scottish Gaelic
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Positionskarte von Schottland, Vereinigtes Königreich Quadratische Plattkarte, N-S-Streckung 170&#160;%. Geographische Begrenzung der Karte: * N: 61.0° N * S: 54.5° N * W: 8.8° W * O: 0.4° W English: Location map of Scotland, United Kingdom Equirectangular projection, N/S stretching 170&#160;%. Geographic limits of the map: * N: 61.0° N * S: 54.5° N * W: 8.8° W * E: 0.4° W
context_page_description: In phonetics, preaspiration 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, Ladefoged & Maddieson prefer to use a simple cluster notation, e.g. ⟨⟩ instead of ⟨⟩.
context_section_description: In Scottish Gaelic, however, due to the historical loss of voiced stops preaspiration is phonemic in medial and final positions after stressed vowels.
  Its strength varies from area to area and can manifest itself as [ʰ] or [h] or in areas with strong preaspiration as [ç] or [x]. 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:
  Area 1 as [xk xt xp] and [çkʲ çtʲ çp]
  Area 2 as [xk xt hp] and [çkʲ çtʲ hp]
  Area 3 as [xk ht hp] and [çkʲ htʲ hp]
  Area 4 as [ʰk ʰt ʰp]
  Area 5 as [xk] and [çkʲ] (no preaspiration of t and p)
  Area 6 no preaspiration
  There are numerous minimal pairs:
  glag [kl̪ˠak] "clock" vs glac [kl̪ˠaxk] "grab" (v.)
  ad [at̪] "hat" vs at [aʰt̪] "boil" (n.)
  leag [ʎɛk] "throw down" vs leac [ʎɛxk] "flagstone"
  aba [ˈapə] "abbot" vs apa [ˈaʰpə] "ape" (n.)
caption: The approximate distribution of preaspiration in Gaelic dialects
exif: {}