Acoustic analysis of implosives in the Rɨ̀kpàʔ language

This study analyzes the acoustic properties of implosives and voiced and voicelessstops in the Rɨ̀kpàʔ language, located in the Center Region of Cameroon (GuthrieZone A.53). Three female native speakers produced lexical items with word-initialand word-medial bilabial and alveolar implosives /ɓ/ and /ɗ/, voiced plosives /b/and /d/, and voiceless plosives /p/ and /t/. We measured and compared the fundamental frequency (f0) of the vowel following the target consonant, the plosive prevoicing or closure duration, and closure intensity between the three segment types.Overall, vowels following implosives have a significantly higher f0 than those following voiced plosives and slightly lower f0 than those following voiceless plosives.We also find that implosives, contrary to previous studies, have shorter closuredurations than voiced plosives in word-initial position, though this pattern wasreversed in word-medial position. Finally, while these implosives show no overalldifference in intensity of prevoicing in word-initial position compared to voicedplosives, we see that implosives, unlike voiced plosives, have a rising intensityslope. In word-medial position, implosives have a significantly higher prevoicingintensity than voiced plosives, but a more uniform intensity profile.