Investigation into Mauritian Creole Plosives

Abstract

This experiment assesses plosive voice onset time (VOT) and constriction duration, and following vowel F0 (fundamental frequency), in Mauritian Creole. Existing studies on Mauritian Creole have not documented these metrics. This experiment involved recording speakers of Mauritian Creole living in Canada, processing the recordings in Praat (Boersma and Weenink, 2025), calculating the averages of the results, then tabulating and comparing the averages. The results generally indicate that VOT is negative for voiced plosives and positive for voiceless plosives, that constriction duration is shorter for voiced plosives than for voiced ones, and voicelessness is correlated with raising of F0 in the following vowel, as in the lexifier, French. In word-medial position, these cues may be neutralized effects on these phonetic metrics. The data lend support to existing theories about voicing effects on F0.