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The Laryngeal Gesture in Austronesian Languages: A Terminological Quibble
- Oceanic Linguistics
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 42, Number 1, June 2003
- pp. 213-217
- 10.1353/ol.2003.0005
- Article
- Additional Information
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Hajek and Bowden (Oceanic Linguistics 41:222-224) report on the unusual ejective series in Waimoa, an Austronesian language of East Timor. I argue that, while phonetically odd, it is not a phonological oddity to find ejectives in an Austronesian language, especially not one in the Timor region. A possible historical pathway for the genesis of the ejectives is proposed, and some questions are raised about the acoustic nature of ejectives and about their phonological representation.