An acoustic analysis of tone and register in Louma Oeshi

Abstract

This study describes the acoustic properties associated with tone and register in Louma Oeshi, a previously unstudied Akoid language of Laos. Louma Oeshi uses three tones (High, Mid, and Low) which overlap with a tense/lax register distinction to yield a six-way suprasegmental contrast. In this paper, we (1) offer a first account of the pitch and voice quality characteristics associated with each Tone-Register pair, (2) examine further the variability in glottalization strategies signaling the constricted register, and (3) explore the influence of contrastive voice quality on pitch and vice versa, particularly as a predictor of the variation in glottalization.