Acoustic characteristics of aspirated fricatives in a Tibeto-Burman language

Aspirated fricatives are typologically rare, though they are relatively more common in Asia (Jacques, 2011). Of the 2155 languages in the PHOIBLE Online database of phonological segments, only 7 are reported to have distinctive fricative aspiration (Moran et al., 2014). This paper examines the acoustic properties of aspirated fricatives in Matu, an under-documented Kuki-Chin (Tibeto-Burman) language spoken in Chin State, Burma (Myanmar). Matu contrasts unaspirated alveolar fricative /s/ with aspirated alveolar fricative /s^h/. Aspirated alveolar fricatives are also found in other Chin languages and have been reconstructed for Proto-Kuki-Chin (VanBik, 2009, p. 186). The data were recorded with Matu-speaking refugees living in Indiana, U.S. and are analyzed using durational and spectral measures. This research expands literature on an uncommon—and reportedly diachronically unstable (Jacques, 2011)—phonemic contrast while increasing documentation of an understudied language. Jacques, G., “A panchronic study of aspirated fricatives, with new evidence from Pumi,” Lingua121, 1518–1538 (2011). and Wright, R.(eds). 2014. PHOIBLE Online, edited by S. Moran, D. McCloy, and R. Wright (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Lepzig, 2014). VanBik, K., “Proto-Kuki-Chin: A reconstructed ancestor of the Kuki-Chin languages,” STEDT Monograph Series #8 (University of California, Berkeley, CA, 2009).