Experimental Analysis of Voicing Contrasts in Igbo

Abstract

This study presents experimental evidence to support the twoway voicing contrast of Igbo stops and fricatives. It also focuses on the phonetic details of Igbo stops and fricatives. Digital recordings of the stops and fricatives were made at a sample rate of 44,100Hz and subsequently analysed in Praat. The study looked into the Voice Onset Time of Igbo consonants and observed that the VOT for Igbo stops falls within the range of 12ms and 84ms with velar stops having a longer VOT. The general appearances of the segments in the spectrograms show that for voiced segments there is a major concentration of energy at some higher frequencies while voiceless segments have more energy in the lower frequencies with considerable amount between 1,000 and 3,000 Hz. The spectral slices that were viewed revealed that the peaks of voiced segments have higher amplitudes than those of the voiceless segments.