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Re: Linguistic Terminology

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Monday, January 4, 1999, 1:03
John Fisher wrote:
> It's an old question, but a good one: why do we call this an allophone > of /t/, and not of /d/? After all, in my accent at least, an initial > /d/, in 'duck' for example, is barely voiced, if at all. The main > salient difference acoustically is in the aspiration. So why shouldn't > we say that that 'still', for example, is /sdIl/ rather than /stIl/?
For me, and, I suspect, most dialects, initial /d/ is always voiced, tho partially unvoiced. Aspiration increases the difference, but it is not the sole, or even salient, difference - voicing is. /d/ always contains some voicing, while /t/ never does, and since the sound in "still" is completely unvoiced, it would have to be /t/, and not /d/. -- "Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia." -- Joseph Wood Krutch http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files/ ICQ #: 18656696 AOL screen-name: NikTailor