Re: /p/ versus devoiced b?

On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, Danny Wier wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > Behalf Of Yoon Ha Lee
> > Sent: Sunday, 28 January, 2001 10:19 AM
>
> > Nah, I wouldn't do this to you.  But I could possibly give a better
> > question if someone would explain what the difference is between /p/ and
> > devoiced /b/, because the little phonetics/phonology I've had/have read
> > is absolutely no help is figuring it out.  :-/
>
> I'll throw some links your way:
>
> http://dir.yahoo.com/Social_Science/Linguistics_and_Human_Languages/Phonetic
> s_and_Phonology/ (from Yahoo!, but all in English)
> I tried a search in Yahoo! Korean but found no links pertaining to
> "phonetics and phonolgy". For "Linguistics and Human Languages",
> http://kr.dir.yahoo.com/Social_Science/Linguistics_and_Human_Languages/
> (make sure your OS or browser can read Hangul!)
We went over it a little in phonetics/phonology today.  :-p  There were
people in the class getting frustrated because they couldn't hear the
difference between /b/ and /p/ (no aspiration) being pronounced by our
Chinese prof, while I sat there thinking, "Thank God for Korean."

I guess it's one of those continuum things.  The difference between
devoiced /b/ and unaspirated /p/ seems kinda small, and I have to be
paying attention to tell the difference.

> To me a voiced consonant means that the vocal cords vibrate continually,
> while with voiceless consonants, the vocal cords stop while the
> lips/tongue/throat closes for the consonant sound. In Korean, the "lax"
> consonants are voiced in between vowels. It might take a good bit of
> practice.
Oh, and as to ejectives--I hit Ladefoged's pronunciation of IPA chart
symbols via the Yahoo! phonetics/phonology links.  I can say definitely
that the "tensed" or "glottalized" consonants are *not* ejectives.  If
anything, the ejectives sound like, well, really strong versions of the
aspirated stops.

Does *anyone* know how IPA represents this glottalization thing?  _The
Korean Alphabet has /p'/, /t'/ etc. but doesn't call them ejectives, and
they sure don't sound like ejectives.  Most puzzling.

YHL