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In phonetics, preaspiration is a period of voicelessness or aspiration preceding the closure of a voiceless obstruent,^[1] basically equivalent to an [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.^[2] To mark preaspiration using the International Phonetic Alphabet, generally the diacritic for regular aspiration (a superscript "h", [ʰ]), is placed before the preaspirated consonant.

Preaspiration is comparatively uncommon across languages of the world,^[3] and is claimed by some to not be phonemically contrastive in any language.^[4] 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.^[5][6][1] Preaspirated consonants are usually allophonic variants of some class of "fortis" ("strong") consonants when they occur after a vowel (generally a stressed vowel).^[3]

Preaspiration can take a number of different forms; while the most usual is glottal friction (an [h]-like sound), the friction can assimilate in point of articulation with the obstruent or the preceding vowel, becoming for example [ç] after close vowels;^[7] other potential realizations include [x] and even [f].^[8]

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.^[9][10]

Some examples of preaspirated plosives from Icelandic (where they occur only after stressed vowels):^[11]

• kappí [ˈkʰaʰpi], "hero"
• hattur [ˈhaʰtʏr], "hat"
• þakka [ˈθaʰka], "thank" listen (help·info)

In Huautla Mazatec, preaspirates can occur word-initially, perhaps uniquely among languages which contain preaspirates:^[12]

• [ʰti] - "fish"
• [ʰtse] - "a sore"
• [ʰtʃi] - "small"
• [ʰka] - "stubble"

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• Phonation

• Gordeeva, Olga, and Scobbie, James M. (2004). "Non-Normative Preaspiration of Voiceless Fricatives in Scottish English: a Comparison with Swedish Preaspiration" (PPT). Colloquium of the British Association of Academic Phoneticians, University of Cambridge. Retrieved on 2007-03-07. 

• McRobbie-Utasi, Zita (1991). "Preaspiration in Skolt Sámi" (PDF). SFU Working Papers in Linguistics 1: 77-87, ed. P. McFetridge. Retrieved on 2007-03-07. 

• ——— (2003). Normative Preaspiration in Skolt Sami in Relation to the Distribution of Duration in the Disyllabic Stress-Group (PDF). Retrieved on 2007-03-07.

• Silverman, Daniel (2003). "On the Rarity of Pre-Aspirated Stops" (PDF). Journal of Linguistics 39: 575-598. Retrieved on 2007-03-08. 

• Stevens, Mary, and Hajek, John (2004). "How Pervasive is Preaspiration? Investigating Sonorant Devoicing in Sienese Italian" (PDF). Tenth Australian International Conference on Speech Science & Technology, Macquarie University, Sydney: 334-39. Retrieved on 2007-03-07. 

• Svantesson, Jan-Olof (2003). "Preaspiration in Old Mongolian?" (PDF). Umeå University, Department of Philosophy and Linguistics. PHONUM 9: 5-8. Retrieved on 2007-03-07. 

• Tronnier, Mechtild (2002). "Preaspiration in Southern Swedish Dialects" (PDF). Proceedings of Fonetik 2002. Speech, Music and Hearing Quarterly Progress and Status Report 44: 33-36. Retrieved on 2007-03-07.