Re: CHAT: cultural interpretation [was Re: THEORY: language and the brain]

Quoting Roger Mills <romilly@...>:

> Mark J. Reed's cri de coeur resonates with me, as well--
> >All of this [voiced_0] vs [unvoiced] stuff is still very mysterious to
> me.  I have no clue how to pronounce [dZ_0] or [v_0] other than
> like [tS] and [f].
>
> Perhaps the X-Sampa diacritic "_0" with consonants  should better be
> interpreted as "lenis", "lax", or "voiceless onset/offset" rather than
> "voiceless".  It seems to me that to refer to a "voiceless [d]" or whatever
> is a contradiction in terms-- IPA [b d g etc.] are inherently voiced-- and a
> "voiceless [d]" would be describing some sort of [t] articulation.
> (Voiceless vowels are another matter; that would be a legitimate use of the
> "voiceless" diacritic.)
It seems to me that in actual usage, it is fortis vs lenis that decides
between IPA [t] and [d], at least when discussing Germanic languages, possibly
because everyone knows the voiceless marker, but marks for fortis/lenis appear
to be unknown. Are there any?

I don't think that my native 'lect has any pair where voicing is the critical
difference ... so I might be feeling that "official" IPA is giving the
distinction undue primacy! :-)

                                                             Andreas

PS The voiceless marker is certainly legitimate on consonant glyphs that don't
come in voiced/voiceless pairs on the IPA chart.