Good timing: place-dependent voice onset time in ejective stops

Voice onset time after voiceless unaspirated stops demonstrates a dependence on place of articulation, most reliably being shorter for labial and coronal than for velar stops. Some of the proposed explanations for this pattern suggest that a parallel dependence is not be expected for aspirated or ejective stops. However, similar patterns do occur with both aspirated and unaspirated stops. Cho and Ladefoged [1] have suggested that ejectives do not follow the same trend, but they had little data on bilabial ejectives to compare with more plentiful data on velars. This paper contributes more material to this debate with expanded data on Yapese and the first published material on ejective VOT in Nez Perce. The results suggest that ejectives have a similar pattern to plosives and that therefore a unified explanation for all three types of stops should be sought.