The fortis feature in Jju Kaje and initial study

Abstract

The fortis feature in JJu (more widely known as Kaje) divides the consonants of the language (except the simultaneous labiovelar plosives kp and gb) into a set of fortis ones and a set of their lenis counterparts. Minimal pairs and other words contrasting in the presence or absence of the fortis feature were studied with the aid of spectrograms. oscillograms. and a tape repeater-segmenter aystem for isolating time portions and measuring their durations. A variety of acoustic cues to the fortis feature was observed. The time span of a consonant is partitioned here into complete occlusion. partial occlusion and final transition. The principal experimental result reported here is that the partial occlusion portion of the fortis plosives and affricates was found to be consistently longer than that of the lenis ones.