Re: Allophone Problem

Quoting Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>:

> Hallo!
>
> On Fri, 8 Jun 2007 03:46:20 -0400, John Vertical wrote:
>
> > I actually recall reading that the final devoicing of stops in German is
> > only a
> > near-merger - that there's some slight phonetic cue that's basically
> > impossible
> > to hear, but appears regularly when recordings are examined rigorously.
>
> It is - at least in my idiolect - like this:
>
> Voiceless stops are not only voiceless, they are also aspirated (except
> in clusters).  In word-final position, voiced stops are devoiced, but
> unlike voiceless stops they are not aspirated.  So you have
>
> _Rat_ [Ra:t_h] vs. _Rad_ [Ra:t]
>
> This is indeed an audible difference, although only a slight one.
Since a Greek friend of mine was taught to speak German that way, I imagine it's
not all too rare.

Given David's post, I shan't swear I didn't pick up some slight distinction
'tween them when I was in Germany, but I was taught  it as a perfect merger, and
my pronunciation of either is strongly aspirated.

(Well, technically a final stop can't be aspirated when the word is spoken in
isolation, since there's no voicing onset to delay. Nevertheless, they both come
with the airburst typical of aspirates - maybe my lexical pronunciation should
be denoted as [Ra:th].)

                                 Andreas