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Re: Chinese Dialect Question

From:Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>
Date:Friday, October 10, 2003, 3:53
On 9 Oct 2003 at 22:51, Jonathan Andrew Beagley wrote:

> Ok, please excuse my extreme ignorance, but what does fortis mean? Also, > what does a voiceless stop sound like? And, lastly, what do you mean by > potato? I'm really sorry if my questions seem silly, but I've never had > a class on linguistics (they don't seem to be interested in offering > linguistics classes in my high school :-( ).
Okay. I don't know you, and I don't know your familiarity level, so I'm going to baby-talk my way through this. My appologies if it's too basic for you. IMO it's the sort of stuff you should learn in Grade School English class, not in High School Linguistics, but I guess that's not the way things are done these days. Fortis and Lenis are extremely old terms (but not old-fashioned) meaning approximately Voiceless and Voiced. There is more to it than that, and you can delve into the realms of the incredibly technical if you really want to. Unfortunately, I'm not fit to be your guide in such realms. Voiceless sounds in English include p, t, k, ch, f, h. Voiced sounds in English include b, d, g, j, v, m, n, ng and most of the other letters. The "simple" definition of the difference between voiced and voiceless is that in voiced sounds, the vocal chords are vibrating while the mouth makes the shapes it makes and the person breathes out, whereas in voiceless sounds, they are not. Touch your throat when you say a voiced letter (e.g. "ba ga da ma"). You will be able to feel a vibration that is not there when you say a voicelss letter (e.g. "pa ka ta ha"). Try alternating voiced and voiceless letters (e.g. "ba pa ba pa ba pa"). All the vowels in English are normally voiced. When you whisper, all the sounds you make are voiceless. Also, voiceless sounds in English are usually followed by a small puff of nearly-silent air, before the vowel. Purists will tell you that this makes the English voiceless sounds actually Aspirated, and I would tend to agree, but it's largely an irrelevant distinction unless a language has all three of Voiceless, Voiced and Aspirated consonants. To hear the difference between a true Voiceless sound and an Aspirated sound, try saying the following pairs of words. The first has an Aspirated stop, the second has a Voiceless stop (after the "s"). kip / skip top / stop pat / spat Hear the difference? Probably not, at first, but it's there. I suspect that in different regional accents, the difference might be greater or smaller. That's about all I can think of to say on the subject for now. I hope I was at least of some help to you. Paul