English voiced/unvoiced aspirated/unaspirated

Christophe Grandsire wrote:

>         I find it strange, because English has also voiced stops
contrasting with
> voiceless stops, at least inside words, doesn't it? I think in France it
> would be the contrary: no problem to distinguish voicing, but tremendous
> problems to distinguish aspirated vs. unaspirated stops. So an English
> person listening to a French saying "cadeau" /kado/ would hear something
> like "gadeau" /gado/?
Yes, precisely -- unless he were used to French, whose voiced stops
are far more voiced than English voiced stops (that is, they have an
earlier "voice onset time").  Then he might notice the absence of the
strong voicing characteristic of a French "g" and realize this was a
French "c".

That's why, as I mentioned before, Navajo transcription, which is
generally done by English/Navajo speakers, uses "d" for an unaspirated
stop and "t" for an aspirated one, and hardly anybody notices that
it's not really a voiced/unvoiced stop distinction (except in the
middle of the word, where you have to remember to aspirate the "t").

Ed

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