Version Date: 1/28/2003 Segmental duration in Lusaamia: a phonetic study

This paper submits the results of an acoustic study of segmental duration in verbs in Lusaamia, a Bantu language spoken in Western Kenya and Eastern Uganda that is characterized by phonemic vowel length distinctions and compensatory lengthening before prenasalized stops (NC). The present study establishes and compares mean durations of lexically short vowels, lexically long vowels and pre-NC vowels in penultimate position of the infinitival form of CVC verbs, considering in particular the relationship between long and pre-NC vowels. This report also discusses final vowel duration, and the duration of prenasalized stops compared with other segments. Besides segmental effects on other segments, this paper also touches on the effects of position and stress on vowel length within a given utterance. The morphology of Lusaamia provides a partial testing ground for this experiment, as there is total reduplication of a CVC verb root plus a final vowel, resulting in two identical CVCV sequences. Mean durations of pre-antepenultimate and penultimate position of the infinitival form of reduplicated CVC verbs are discussed. Since stress is claimed to be penultimate in many Bantu languages, one might expect penultimate vowels to be longer than vowels in other positions (Batibo 2000, Anyanwu 2001). This hypothesis is considered in light of the acoustic measurements.