Preocclusion in Manx and the Manx Song Tradition

Preocclusion, as noticed by Pavel Iosad (2016), involves the insertion of a homorganic stop element before stressed final nasals and laterals and is one of the best-known features of Manx phonology. In written sources the phenomenon is only attested in certain nineteenth-century folksong manuscripts in non-standard orthography, although there is reason to believe it developed significantly earlier (Lewin 2023). Synchronically, preocclusion can be seen as one of a number of developments which increase the weight of syllable codas in Gaelic phonology. Accounts involving language contact (Wagner 1964) are superficially attractive given the presence of preocclusion in Scandinavian, but it is more likely, as Iosad (ibid.) asserts, that this is the result of deeper structural similarities in the phonology of northern European languages, perhaps related to much older language contact (Iosad 2016).