Consonant Onset and Tone Patterns in Ga

A recent acoustic study of Ga tones indicates that Ga uses seven tone patterns to distinguish meaning in words and syllables. These tone patterns include High, Low, High High, High Low, Low Low, High High Low, High High High. This study investigates how different onsets affect the different tone patterns in Ga. In this research, we investigate how syllable onset of different voicing, place of articulation and manner of articulation affect the tone patterns of the Ga syllable. Data is collected from two native speakers who read sentences in a frame: “say… only”. F0 and duration of the syllables were analyzed using PRAAT. The results confirm earlier results from other studies that syllables with voiceless onset are likely to be longer and have a higher F0 than syllables with voiced onsets. In terms of places of articulation for the nasals, the tendency is that the palatal nasals have the lowest pitch contour for the L tone pattern followed by the alveolar and then the bilabial. For the H tone pattern, the alveolar has the highest pitch contour followed by the palatal and then the bilabial. Thus the paper suggests that any description of the tone patterns of language should include an investigation of the different onsets that a syllable can have. The study gives precise description of the tones of Ga and adds to the acoustic database of Ga language.