AN ACOUSTIC STUDY OF NORTH WELSH VOICELESS FRICATIVES

Welsh, a Celtic language spoken in Wales, is unusual amongst the languages of the world in having a minimum of 8 fricative contrasts at (at least) 6 places of articulation, a relatively large number. Most research on fricatives has been conducted on languages with a relatively small (but cross-linguistically common) number of fricative place contrasts. Welsh fricatives have not previously been the subject of a detailed acoustic study across speakers. This study begins to fill that gap, and also provides some phonetic information on how one language organises a large system of fricative place contrasts.