Re: Danish VOT

Den 11. nov. 2008 kl. 16.07 skrev Benct Philip Jonsson:

> [^1]: I've come to the conclusion that we
> probably have an instinctive notion that
> voiced stops are the most typical (as in most
> distinctive) lenes which creates this
> illusion.  The gods know it's hard to unlearn,
> but it gets us dead wrong when listening to
> Danish -- and most Romance varieties:
Well, it's not so difficult when you listen carefully and
objectively. But it's true that I've lived through more than half a
life finding nothing 'wrong' about the Danish lenes, when in fact
there is. Well not actually _wrong_, but you know what I mean.

> in the
> dialect of Rome intervocalic /p t tS k/ are or
> can be [b_0 d_0 dZ_0 g_0] while /b d dZ g/
> are fully voiced.  I heard them all as
> 'voiced' and assumed a merger, which my
> Italian acquaintances vehemently denied.
> It just so happened that I was conditioned
> by my L1 to hear those two phone types as
> 'the same'.
But are they actually voiceless? Or is their voicing just shorter in
duration than the usual voiced stops? The phonetic notation is really
confusing here, as for example d_0 to me seems to mean "voiceless
voiced dental stop". Or is this the phonetician's notation for
"voiceless lenis (dental) stop"? If so, is there some aspiration
difference between [t] and [d_0], or are these only notationally and
not physically different?

LEF