Acoustics of the tense-lax stop contrast in Semarang Javanese

Abstract

Javanese has a contrast between tense and lax stops. While both tense and lax stops are voiceless and unaspirated, the contrast at least in word-initial position is realized through acoustic differences in the following vowel, including lower f0, breathier voice quality, and higher F1 for the lax stops relative to their tense counterparts. However, previous reports have indicated substantial cross-speaker variation, and in some cases involve differing characterizations of the acoustic contrast, possibly due to small sample sizes. Moreover, it is still unclear whether (and how) this contrast is maintained in word-final position. In this study, we investigate the tense-lax contrast based on audio recordings of 27 speakers of Central Javanese from Semarang, Indonesia who each read 30 or more items with a word-initial or word-final stop in a carrier phrase. Stops and their adjacent vowels were hand-annotated, and measurements were taken including voice onset and offset time, stop closure and release duration, f0, formant frequencies, and spectral tilt and noise levels. Discussion will focus on how the tense-lax contrast is realized in both word-initial and word-final positions, as well as how different acoustic correlates co-vary within and across speakers.