Of particular interest was the three-way (lenis-fortis-aspirated) obstruent distinction, and geminate nasal consonants.
While medial and final fortis stops are up to four times longer than lenis ones,13 duration is neutralised in initial position.
Obstruents (stops, fricatives and affricates) were grouped into lenis, fortis and aspirated.
Duration measurements, though, show solid and consistent length differences, with fortis stops being almost three times as long as lenis ones.
This paper, however, will limit the discussion to the postlexical application of the tensing rule between phonological words, and after a lenis obstruent.
The result is that voiceless fricatives are inherently rather than derivatively fortis whereas, parallel to the voiced series of stops, voiced fricatives are lenis and only weakly or coincidentally voiced.
Fricatives include only lenis and fortis distinctions.
Among obstruents, lenis is the most frequent.
