Effects of implosives on <i>F</i>0 in SiSwati.

As is widely known, the fundamental frequency (F0) of the onset of a vowel after voiceless consonants is significantly higher than after voiced consonants. It has been assumed in the literature that implosives (glottalic ingressives) have a raising effect similar to voiceless stops. To investigate this hypothesis, a study was conducted examining the effects of implosives in SiSwati. Four subjects, three males and one female, participated in the study. The wordlist consisted of eight CVX tokens, where C=/ph, inverted open gee, msyllabic em, m/ (voiceless aspirated, implosive, breathy, plain voiced) and where V=/a/ with high or low tone. The tokens were spoken in the frame: ‘‘Tsàní—— fùtsì.’’ (Say——again). The results for /ph/ duplicate the results of earlier studies showing a higher onset F0. The nasals, /msyllabic em,m/, lowered onset F0. However, the results for /inverted open gee/ indicate that implosives have no significant raising or lowering effect on F0.