Re: Lenition

Christian Thalmann writes:
 > > I still really don't understand by what logic English speakers call voiced
 > > sounds "harder" than unvoiced sounds. I was extremely surprised the first time
 > > I heard such a claim, and I still cannot imagine what it can mean.
 >
 > I was quite flabbergasted myself, but I do have a theory by now.  =P
 >
 > I assume those people somehow confound hardness with loudness.  The
 > human speech apparatus can produce voiced sounds with much greater
 > volume than unvoiced ones.
 >
 > However, "hardness" is a qualitative property, not a quantitative one.
 > Try whacking someone with a wet towel -- it's certainly going to hurt
 > them more than lovingly touching them with a nightstick, despite the
 > fact that the latter is harder.  If you were to wield the nightstick
 > with the same force as the towel, the situation would be very
 > different, of course.
 >
The thing is, in English you'd likely express that as a difference in
"how hard you hit them".

Personally, insofar as I can apply the idea of "hardness" to a sound,
I find unvoiced stops harder than voiced (because they're aspirated)
and voiced fricatives harder that unvoiced (because they're louder).