Three-way contrast in breathiness in Ju—’hoansi

Abstract

I present results of an acoustic study investigating three female and three male speakers’ productions of a three-way contrast in breathiness in the Khoisan language Ju—’hoansi, with the spectral slope (H1–H2) occurring at the release of the stop resulting in aspirated consonants, or the peak H1–H2 reached over the first part of the vowel in partially breathy vowels, or the peak H1–H2 maintained over the entire vowel in fully breathy vowels. H1–H2, and gamnitude of the first rahmonic peak were measured throughout the course of the vowel using a window of 46.5 ms, with a sampling rate of 22<th>050 Hz, starting from the first computer-recognized glottal pulse, with a step-size of 10 ms. Results show extremely similar patterns for both H1–H2 and gamnitude of the first rahmonic peak for aspirated consonants and partially breathy vowels. These sounds are distinguished on the basis of VOT, but not by fundamental frequency (F0). Aspirated consonants and partially breathy vowels are extremely similar in H1–H2, gamnitude of the first rahmonic peak, and F0, being differentiated only by voice onset time (VOT).