Re: Whispered voicing ( was: Re: /p/ versus devoiced b?)

On Mon, Jan 29, 2001 at 10:49:27PM +0100, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Eric Christopherson wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Jan 29, 2001 at 10:34:47AM -0600, Patrick Dunn wrote:
> > > Creaky voice.
> > >
> > > The vocal cords vibrate, but are held very tense to prevent full voicing.
> > > If you hold them even more tensely, you have whispered voicing.
> >
> > Does this relate in any way to Indic-style voiced aspirates? If not, could
> > someone describe those for me? :)
> >
>
> That's exactly it - according to some. But I've also heard accounts of
> linguists having heard _real_ aspirated voiced consonants. I imagine
> that those would be consonants with a voiced onset, follow by a vowel
> with a voiceless onset and voiced ending. Or something ;-).
Hmm, kinda like how a few linguists say that voiced ejectives exist, I
guess. So the essential feature of aspiration is that the vowel after the
aspirated consonant starts out voiceless? How can that be though, when a) it
is maintained that unisegmental [t_h] is different from disegmental [th]; b)
that [h] is in reality just the vowel that follows it, but unvoiced, such
that [ha] is really [a_0a] (_0=voiceless)? If it's true that aspiration is
simply the following of a consonant with a voiceless vocoid sound, it seems
that [t_h] WOULD be identical to [th].

--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo