Re: YAEPT Re: English /T/, was Re: Spanish ll in different dialects

Joe wrote:

<<Wait..[t_d]?  Not [d_d] or [D_d]?>>

Well, definitely not [D_d] (wouldn't that be redundant...?   The
dental would be expected, and I think you'd have to use a
"retracted" diacritic to indicate a post-dental rather than inter-
dental fricative--using strict IPA).   The [t_d] was just my "joke".
That is, in many places, voiced stops in English devoice, so that
what distinguishes them from a voiceless stop is not the voicing
but the presence or lack of aspiration (spread or constricted glottis).
Voiced stops are still voiced in places, though.   Nevertheless, if
one took the theory seriously and went so far as to claim that
there are *no* truly voiced stops in English, then you would have
the following:

<<[T], [t], [t_h], [t_d], as in "thigh", "die", "tie", and "thy".>>

But one thing which I believe *is* true is that the *phoneme* /D/
in many dialects rarely surfaces with any frication, so that it's
actually more of a dental stop.   This is especially true of "the".
Accoustically, it's the place of articulation (dental as opposed to
alveolar) and not the frication that gives more of a clue as to
what phoneme you have, which is why you don't need to have
a fricative /D/.   That's my guess, anyway.

-David
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