Re: Linguistic Terminology
| From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, January 4, 1999, 1:03 |
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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/.
--
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