On the acoustic characterization of ejective stops in Waima'a

We examine some acoustic properties of ejective stops in Waima’’a (an Austronesian language spoken in East Timor), and compare them with other voiceless stop types that occur in the language. Previous studies of ejectives in other languages have suggested that they may fall into two classes, strong and weak. We compare our Waima’’a results with some existing findings in the literature, and suggest that while Waima’’a ejectives might appear to be more appropriately characterized as strong on some criteria, they do not sit squarely in either category.