From: Patrick C. Ryan
Message: 19045
Date: 2003-02-22
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2003 5:35 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Laryngeal theory as an unnatural
> On Fri, 21 Feb 2003 23:21:51 -0600, "Patrick C. Ryan"
> <proto-language@...> wrote:
>
<snip>
> That's exactly what I'm doing. I define "voice" as vibration of the
> vocal chords. English /d/, in initial or final position, and for many
> speakers even between voiced sounds, has no vocal chord vibration, so
> it is not voiced.
[PCR]
Since you seem to have a small problem with, for the purposes of this discussion only, with my temporary indication of "voice" as V, I will henceforth indicate it as %.
Now, I am a native speaker of Midwestern English, which before political correctness categorically denied a "standard" English, was considered closest to "standard" English. I have also lived for substantial periods of time in the East, the South, and the West of the US. However talented you may be in many ways, your prescriptions for what the phonetic facts of English are, are simply unbased in reality.
In dialects I have heard all over the US, initial /b,d, g/ are voiced. By "voiced", I mean specifically:
1) a closure of the oral cavity is achieved by the tongue or lips;
2) vibration of the vocal chords ensues which ends when the capacity of the closed area behind the tongue or lips absorbs to capacity the air (pressure) created by vibrating the vocal chords;
3) the closure is then released.
I recently saw a TV commercial in which a grubby cabdriver from Brooklyn mentioned the "Brooklyn Bridge", which sounded like /pruklin pridzh/. This is definitely a non-standard and disfavored pronunciation in most of the US.
In most American English, as noted, the initial [b] is realized as /P%>/ if we wish to designate labial closure as /P/ and release as />/. The combination of pre-voicing and labial closure and release of closure is English initial [b]. Unless you wish to deny that initial /P%>/ is "voiced", then you must admit that most English initial [b] is voiced.
It seems to me, but correct me if I am wrong, that you are insisting that Dutch or Spanish initial [b] is voiced throughout the production of the sound.
Could you tell me have it (or they) differs - specifically - from /P%./?
>>I think your reference to Mandarin is probably a 'typo'. The system of stop contrasts in Mandarin is unaspirated vs. aspirated, both voiceless.
>
> The typo is called Hanyu Pinyin.
[PCR]
I am afraid this cryptic answer does not illuminate the question. Are you denying that the Mandarin stop contrasts are voiceless unaspirated vs. aspirated? Yes or no?
<snip>
> It's not a matter of opinion. Acoustic phonetics is a branch of
> applied phyisics.
[PCR]
So, are you saying that before the pressure built up my voicing is effectively stopped by the closure, a release is made? Do you also assert that voicing follows the release? By the way, there are many matters of opinion in physics. Being a scientist means that one recognizes that.
<snip>
Pat
PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE@... (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)