Voice Onset Time and Constriction Duration in Warlpiri Stops (Australia)

This paper presents a first detailed analysis of the Voice Onset Time (VOT) and Constriction Duration (CD) stops /p t ʈ c k/ and flap /ɽ/ in the Indigenous Australian language Warlpiri as spoken in Lajamanu Community, in Australia’s Northern Territory. The results show that Warlpiri stops are realised as voiceless, long-lag stops word-initially, as well as word-medially, where /p t k/ are also characterised by CDs in excess of 100 ms, similar to those reported for Kriol, and for the emerging mixed language Light Warlpiri, also spoken in the community, and by some of the participants. The results indicate that the realisation of word-initial Warlpiri flap /ɽ/ is highly variable, potentially resulting in a near-merger with the rhotic approximant /ɻ/. The results further suggest that Warlpiri does not make a word-medial distinction between stops orthographically represented by ‘rt’ and ‘rd’, which have been argued to be realised as /ʈ/ and /ɽ/, respectively.