>On 31/05/06, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
> > I was reading a phonology text* discussing differences in voice onset
>time
> > ("VOT") in occlusives. In order from early to late VOT they divide 'em
>into
> > five broad classes; voiced, halfvoiced, voiceless, aspirated, and
>strongly
> > aspirated**. Apparently, no know language uses more than three classes
> > contrastively, so thos looking for ANADEW-breaking have a chance here.
>
>Do any distinguish voiced and halfvoiced or aspirated and strongly
>aspirated, or are these only phonetic/crosslinguistic distinctions?
>The wikipedia page <
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_onset_time>
>seems to agree with my suspicions.
>Tristan.
Some varieties of Finnish might fit the bill... Our /p t k/ are claimed to
have a small negative VOT, altho so short that it's practically inaudible to
the naked ear. Loanwords with fully voiced /b d g/ are anmyway not all that
rare. (Nativ <d> is [d] only in a few 'lects, plus /t/ being [t_d] provides
even then an additional distinction.)
Estonian <b d g> are definitely half-voiced, but they do not contrast with
voiced /b d g/ from loanwords (to my knowledge anyway).
John Vertical