Re: Questions on Proto-Indo-European

#
# >Well, Mandarin speakers have no trouble distinguishing [p] and [ph] in speech,
# >but have a lot of trouble with [p] and [b]. It's just a matter of what you're
# >used to distinguish. For you, this "small breath" is hard to notice, but for
# >the people who actually have such a sound it doesn't seem to be such a problem,
# >and they would rather find distinctions that *you* make so small that they
# >can't understand how you tell them apart! :))
# >
# Actually, if I'm not mistaken, and I quite possibly am, English /t/ and
# /d/ often surface as [t_h] and [d] or [t], and in the situations where
# /t/ would be [t_h], an English speaker may well hear [t] as /d/. Err...
# so that 'small breath' is actually relevant to English speakers too,
# sometimes moreso then whether there's breath or not.
#
# I think. Clarify my point, someone :)
#

I think what we want to say is that what distinguishes english /p/ and /b/
(as well as /t/ and /d/, /k/ and /g/) is aspiration, not voicing. But
only in initial position. This can all be lumped into Voicing Onset Time,
where an aspirated stop [p_h] has a period of time (i think typically
like 20 milliseconds?) between the release of stop closure and the
onset of voicing. A plain unaspirated stop [p] has 0 lag time, thus
voicing begins the instant the stop is released, and the voiced stop
[b], voicing occurs throughout the formation of the stop.

If you have any sound recording equipment (on a computer), try recording
yourself saying "peach", "beach", and "speech".

If you cut the [s] off of "speech", you will not hear "peach", as you may
expect, but it will sound to an english speaker as "beach". This is because
the /p/ in "speech" is [p], the unaspirated voiceless stop.. it's all about
perception... in initial position, we (english speakers) need that aspiration
to distinguish /p/ and /b/.

-tim
http://www.zece.com/conlang/