Effects of morpheme type on Deg Xinag ejectives.

Abstract

Stem‐initially in Deg Xinag (Athabaskan), there is a three‐way contrast between voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated and ejective stops, and affricates at a variety of places of articulation, including alveolar with lateral release. In prefixes, there is a single lateral ejective affricate, /tɫ’/, historically from *h‐s‐ɫ‐, [Leer (2000)]. In a previous acoustic study [Hargus (2008)], the prefixal lateral affricate had relatively few of the characteristics of ejectives in stems (VOT, f0 perturbation, jitter perturbation, rise time, and normalized fricative energy measures). However, it was not clear whether the reduced number of ejective characteristics of the prefix was a reflection of its evolution from non‐ejective *h‐s‐ɫ‐ or an expected effect of morpheme type (presumably via concomittant differences in stress). In a follow‐up study, the ejective characteristics of a prefixal retroflex ejective affricate (first person plural subject) are compared to those of retroflex ejective affricates in stems. Retroflex ejectives in stems have significantly longer VOT, slower rise time, lesser normalized fricative energy, and/or differences in normalized f0 relative to the prefix. This suggests that the variability of the prefixal lateral ejective affricate is an expected effect of morpheme type, and not a stage in the evolution to ejective. [(Work supported by NSF.)]