Duhumbi Phonology - Plosive Distinction Based on Maximum VOT

This phonological topic is based on the observation that Duhumbi has a relative paucity of non-aspirated, unvoiced plosive consonants. Whereas the are many attestations of aspirated onsets /kh, g, ph/ and voiced onsets /b, t, th/ there are much fewer attestations of onsets /k, p, t/, especially in word-initial position. It is observed that this observation is replicated in the other Western Kho-Bwa languages; by contrast, Puroik has relatively few attestations of aspirated plosive onsets (p.c. Ismael Lieberherr).

The unvoiced plosives /k, t, p/ are characterised by both the lack of voicing and lack of aspiration. The onset of voicing commences with the release of the unvoiced plosive, resulting in a Voice Onset Timing (henceforth VOT) close to zero. For the voiced plosives /g, d, b/, the onset of voicing well precedes the release of the plosive, resulting in a negative VOT, whereas for the aspirated plosives /kh, th, ph/ the onset of voicing is delayed by the aspiration, resulting in a positive VOT.

The above observations appear to indicate that at the Proto-Duhumbi level there was a distinction between unvoiced aspirated and voiced plosives, i.e. between *tʰ- and *d-, *kʰ- and *g-, *pʰ and *b-. There were no distinctive unvoiced unaspirated plosives †t-, †k-, †p-, although the unvoiced unaspirated plosives [t, k, p] occurred as allophones of either of the voiceless aspirated or voiced variant in syllable-final position. There is a phonological explanation for this distribution: the distinction, as measured in VOT, between an unvoiced unaspirated plosive and a voiced unaspirated plosive is significantly larger than that between either an unvoiced unaspirated plosive and an unvoiced aspirated plosive or an unvoiced unaspirated plosive and a voiced unaspirated plosive. It is thus easier to create the distinction in speech and similarly to audibly distinguish between, for example, /ph/ and /b/ than between /p/ and /pʰ/ or between /p/ and /b/. If at the proto-level a two-way, rather than a three-way opposition between plosives has to be presumed, then, the opposition between *pʰ and *b is more natural than an opposition between *p and *b or between *p and *ph. This, however, does not mean a distinction in more than one phonological feature, i.e., not between both voicing and aspiration: it is a single opposition, namely, the distinction in Voice Onset Timing. 

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Tim Bodt: bodttim (at) gmail (dot) com