Stricture relativity in Igbo and Yoruba implosives

Abstract

The distributive power of a segment or a group of segments is one of the dominant determinants of the overall “timbre” of a language. Of course their natural bearing on the so-called sonority sequencing ideology of Hogg and McCully (1987) must also not be divorced from the aforesaid markedness question (Crystal 1997; Williamson 1994). But the general acoustic impression of certain sounds, when evaluated across languages, brings to the fore the question of relativity in the framework of their production within the languages compared. This factor and, perhaps their (natural) fundamental frequency (fo) of occurrence, contribute to dictate the overall syncopation of the language system.
This paper argues, inter alia, that Igbo as well as Yoruba language, harbour a spectrum of implosives, and that whatever disparity in their relative degree of stricture even favours the “implosivization” of what have hitherto been referred to in Yoruba as labial velar stops. We think to be a bit inquisitive as we muster tools upon a somewhat micro index of the “make-up” of the category, within both codes that have the “kp gb” impressionism. In considering patterns of their “stricturing”, it is not unlikely to, among other things, recourse to neurophysiological appeal in handling data. For test material the four hundred word list has been administered on native-speaker informants.


Lwati: A Journal of Contemporary Research Vol. 4 () 2007: pp.120-130