Re: Lenition
From: | Tim May <butsuri@...> |
Date: | Monday, June 24, 2002, 17:52 |
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).