This paper examines the phonetic characteristics of the Tfuea dialect of Tsou, an Austronesian language spoken in Southern Taiwan. The authors employ both acoustic and auditory analyses, as such it represents the first instrumental study of Tsou. As the consonant and vowel inventories of the language are examined in phonetic detail, several points of disagreement in previous descriptions of the language are cleared up. The analyses include vowel formant measures, consonant voicing and VOT by place of articulation, and intrinsic pitch of vowels. In addition to the segmental description, there is a preliminary investigation of the consonant clusters many of which are only rarely attested in the world’s languages.

Keywords: Tsou, Acoustic Phonetics, Consonant inventory, Vowel inventory, Consonant clusters

Richard Wright(李昌豪)/ Peter Ladefoged

印地安那大學心理學系/ 加州大學洛杉磯分校語言學系