Ejectives in Tanana Athabaskan Siri G. Tuttle University of Washington Department of Linguistics, Universiy of Washington, Box 354340, Seattle, WA 98195 Abstiact Ejectives in Athabaskan languages have been investigated phonetically by Lindau (1984) and McDonough and Ladefoged (1993), in Navajo, and by Davis and Hmgus (1994, 1996) in Babine-W]tsuwit’en. h the latter two investigations, three different ~es of production were found associated with gloti consonants, only one of which showed the classic ejective pattern with a silent period. Examination of samples of the Minto dideti of Tanana Atiabaskan recorded in 1961, 1973 and the WIY 1990s found similar variation in samples of this Naskan Athabaskan language. There appear to be no examples of ejectives without silent periods in the oldest sample (1961). This suggests the hypothesis that the ejeetive without silent period, and the occurrence of creaky voice in expected ejeetives, is m innovation; however, variation in a 1973 recording shows that such variation is not a phenomenon only of the present decade. These findings are wnsistent with the variations discovered by Davis and Hargus (1994, 1996). LAR~GEAL CONTRASTS In Tanana Athabaskan, as in other Athabaskan languages, there is a three-way laryngeal distinction in stem-initial obstruents. The obstruents in question are given in (1) in conventional Athabaskanist orthography: (1) Tanana (Mmto Dialect) Stops and -cates Api Lateral hterdentd Mveolar Retroflex Palatat Velar Glottal Av Plain d dl da & dr 3 g ? Aspirated t tl te ts tr E k Glottdized t’ tr te ts’ tr’ “, c k These obstruents maybe voiceless unaspirated (plain), aspirated or glottalized, but there is no distinctive voicing. PWWOUS ACOUSTIC S~~S OF ATWAS~N E~CT~S Ejectives in Athabaskan languages have been investigated phonetically by Lindau (1984) and McDonough and Ladefoged (1993), in Navajo (an Apachean Athabaskan language), and by Davis and Hargus (1 994, 1996) in Babine- Witsuwit’en, a northern Athabaskan language spoken in British Columbia. Lindau and McDonough found classic ejectives with silent periods in Navajo. h the latter two investigations of Babine- Witsutit ‘en, however, three different types of production were found associated with glottal consonants, otiy one of which showed the classic ejective pattern witi a silent period. Davis and Hargus have found examples of classic ejectives in this language, but dso ejectives which have no silent period but a period of creaky voice instead, and ejectives which are not distinguishable from voiced stops on the basis of expected acoustic correlates. 2929