Acoustic analyses of the oral vowels of Gbe

Abstract

The study aims at establishing the phonetic identity of each of the vowels of Gbe by determining the underlying phonetic parameters that characterize the vowel system. It also aims at comparing the vowel spaces of the Ewe and Gen dialects to state their similarities or differences. Finally, the study seeks to investigate the durational properties of the oral vowels of Gbe. The Kay Elemetrics Computerized Speech Lab (CSL-4500) and the SPSS software packages were used to analyse the oral vowels uttered by 120 purposively sampled native speakers. The CSL-4500 was used to generate the formant frequency and durational values of the vowels while the SPSS software was used to conduct tests of Analysis of Variance to determine the within-groups and between-groups differences. The study finds out that the vowel space of Ewe is slightly wider than the vowel space of the Gen dialect and that while there is significant variability between the comparable front vowels of Ewe and Gen, the back vowels of the two dialects are similar. The study further finds out that [a] in Gbe is a low central unrounded vowel and, therefore, there is no back unrounded vowel in Gbe. The study concludes that the rounding feature and the backness feature are redundant in Gbe. Hence, it is not necessary to specify both features in describing the Gbe vowels. In terms of duration, Gbe vowels are longer in the environment of voiceless consonants than the voiced ones and also in high-tone syllables than in low-tone ones.