Re: Linguistic Terminology

Kristian Jensen wrote:
> I suspect that this is merely a transcription practice. Anything
> aspirated would be transcribed as /p/t/k/ and anything unaspirated
> as /b/d/g/. Voicing has little to do with the transcription.
/b/ /d/ and /g/ are always voiced.  An unaspirated stop is /p/,
aspirated is /p_h/.  [b], [p], and [p_h] all exist in English.  [p] and
[p_h] are allophones of /p/, while [b] is its own phoneme, /b/.

> Actually, IMHO, the term 'voiced' and 'unvoiced' is pretty
> misleading because it gives the impression that its a binary feature
> when in fact there is a pretty broad spectrum from creaky voiced to
> modal voice to unvoice (there are several other kinds of voicing in
> between these three).
There's also breathy voice.  However, I don't think that "voiced" and
"unvoiced" are in any way misleading - they are the main phonations
throughout the world, and many languages contain only them (and I know
of none that contains only one of those), so it makes sense, in my mind,
to distinguish primarily between them.  Besides, they are voiced and
unvoiced, if you wish, they could be called "simple voiced" and "simple
voiceless" to distinguish between them and creaky or breathy voices.

> I suspect that in John's dialect, initial /d/
> is in fact something called 'slack voice' (something between modal
> voice and voiceless).
I have never encountered this term before, what does it mean, and how
can it be *between* voice and voiceless?  The vocal cords either vibrate
(as in voiced and creaky voice) or don't (as in voiceless or breathy
voice).

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