Voice onset time in Shekgalagarhi stops

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to determine the efficacy of Voice Onset Time (VOT) in distinguishing a series of word initial homorganic stop consonants in Shengologa, a dialect of Shekgalagarhi, a South-eastern Bantu language of the Western Sotho-Tswana group. Issues pertinent to VOT are also addressed: namely VOT as a function of place of articulation; and the effect of phonetic context on VOT; specifically the influence of the following vowel. Compared with other stops, ejectives have often manifested long VOT values in some languages with VOT values of around 80+ ms in duration being not uncommon. The argument is that in Shengologa, the voiceless unaspirated stops are pulmonic stops rather than glottalic. Voiceless aspirated stops in general manifest long duration of aspiration.

LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research Vol.3 () 2006: pp.169-185