Re: Consonant Aspiration

On 04/04/09 21:51:48, Muke Tever wrote:
> On Sat, 04 Apr 2009 12:16:06 -0600, Linvi Charles
> <linvi.charles@...> wrote:
>
> > Is it just me or does the unaspirated /t/ (like in s*t*op) sound
> like the
> > /d/ (like in *d*ead)?
>
> It'll do that because the only difference is voicing, and as (I
> assume
> you
> are) an English speaker your phonology distinguishes voiceless stops
> from
> voiced stops by both voicing and aspiration--[t] is thus perceived as
>
> close to /d/ by virtue of being unaspirated, and different from, i.e.
> not,
> /t_h/ for the same reason.
>
> The tendency to hear [t] as /d/ has led some to suggest that it's
> aspiration, not voicing, that is the salient factor in distinguishing
> the
> stop series in English.
Furthermore, in some dialects (RP and Australian, for example) the
aspiration is not only the salient factor, but the only one, in onsets.

Even more, in English, children normally learn the plain (i.e.
"voiced") series of stops first, and generalise them to places where
the aspirated (i.e. "voiceless") series belong, even after the child
does use aspirated stops. In languages with a voicing distinction, the
reverse happens (i.e. voiceless stops learnt first and used instead of
voiceless stops).

Also, there's plenty of evidence from speech errors and other
phenomena, like "basketti" for "spaghetti" -- not "pasketti".

That last one is an *excellent* example for Linvi's question. Also,
there's plenty of punning between "discussed" and "disgust", which are
homophonous. Also also, "next year" is usually pronounced (IME) as "nex
jear", because the t is unaspirated in that position.

(Of course, like any statement about English, this is only true for
dialects it's true for, and any desire to say "'discussed' and
'disgust' are different for xyz" need not be pursued.)

--
Tristan.