The Pohnpeian stop contrast between laminal alveolars and apical dentals involves differences in VOT and F2 locus equation intercepts

Abstract

Pohnpeian (ISO639-3 pon) is a phonetically understudied Oceanic language spoken by about 34,000 people in the Federated States of Micronesia, and 12,000 in the United States. Pohnpeian has a typologically uncommon laminal alveolar stop /t̻/ that contrasts with an apical dental stop /t̪/. Three male and two female native speakers were recorded in Honolulu, saying phonetically controlled wordlists in sentence frames. VOTs, F2s at vowel onset and steady state, and burst spectral moments (center of gravity and skewness) were measured in PRAAT and analyzed in R. Hierarchical linear modeling showed that /t̻/ has a significantly longer VOT than /t̪/. Linear regressions showed similar F2 locus equation slopes, but a higher intercept for /t̻/. Neither COG nor skewness exhibited significant differences. The locus equation intercept results, while similar to those of Sussman et al. 1993 for Urdu, have a different cause. Urdu /ɖ/’s higher intercept is due to higher F2 onsets than that of /d̪/, Pohnpeian’s /t̻/ and /t̪/ have similar F2 onsets; /t̻/’s higher intercept is due to vowel allophony: a lower F2 steady state for /t̻/. The burst spectral results remain puzzling in light of source-filter theory, which predicts a higher COG for /t̪/ than /t̻/.