Re: [tied] Laryngeal theory as an unnatural

On Mon, 24 Feb 2003 13:46:39 -0600, "Patrick C. Ryan"
<proto-language@...> wrote:

>From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>
>I think this whole pre-voicing business is ficticious. I've never
>heard it, never seen it described, and I've never seen a spectrogram
>of it. Voice onset time in English occurs _after_ the closure, not
>before it.
>
>[PCR]
>Well, apparently you have never read Jespersen, which Piotr was kind enough to include in his posting.
>
>"Otto Jespersen (1909) [about English /b/]: "... the vocal chords are generally in vibration so as to make the sound 'voiced'; this is always the case between voiced sounds, as in _robber_, _to begin_; in the beginning of a sentence, as in _Begin_ after a pause, the vibrations do not, however, begin till immediately before the opening of the lips..."
>
>Here, he clearly describes "pre-voicing". "immediately before the opening" means, however long the voicing is, it occurs DURING closure. Of course, you may always accuse Jespersen of supplying "fictitious" data.

You claimed, unless I misunderstood you, that in initial position
there was voicing _before the beginning of closure_. That's what I
referred to as pre-voicing.

Jespersen merely states what I've said all along: English initial b-
(or d-, or g-) starts out as an unvoiced unaspirated stop. An ensuing
vowel is fully voiced (unlike what's the case with initial p-, t-, k-,
where the initial segment of the vowel or resonant is devoiced).
Voicing starts around the time of release (immediately before or after
it, accounts vary).

>>>>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?
>
>No. But the standard transliteration (Hanyu Pinyin), uses <d> for the
>unaspirated, and <t> for the aspirated phoneme.
>
>[PCR]
>How one writes it is completely immaterial to this discussion.

But not immaterial to the word "typo" :-).


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...