Dene stop contrasts: Data from Délįnę Slavey

This paper presents the results of an acoustic study of stop contrasts in Slavey, a Dene (Athabaskan) language with a three-way laryngeal contrast. Stops in 8 speakers were measured. In addition to durational differences between the stops, burst intensity was found to be important for distinguishing aspirated stops from plain and ejective stops, and coarticulatory effects on the following vowel were found to be important for distinguishing ejective stops. Dél S avey has stop contrasts similar to those of a number of other Dene languages. The languages varied the most in their realization of ejective stops, but there were consistent patterns: ejectives were never longer than aspirated stops or shorter than plain stops and they were always, among the stops, followed by vowels with the most creaky voice and the slowest intensity rise.