Danish vs. English

[finlay]

Thanks Finlay.

[pæŋkʼ] should be 'bank' right? I've been paying attention to English /b/ ever since you brought that up a while ago and I really don't hear it as [p], maybe there is some devoicing word-initially but it certainly isn't [p].

There is a bit of dialectal variation, but I'd say this is still broadly true. It's quite possible that there's more in america than [p]. It's also possible that because it's a strictly phonetic category it's difficult to hear. Either way, it can be difficult to tell apart and [p] for many english speakers.

[Legion]

It's a question of Voice Onset Time. If we strictly measure this with precise instruments, we should find that English /b/ is between more common versions of /p/ and /b/, but not exactly either. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_onset_time

[Travis B.]

Thanks Finlay.

[pæŋkʼ] should be 'bank' right? I've been paying attention to English /b/ ever since you brought that up a while ago and I really don't hear it as [p], maybe there is some devoicing word-initially but it certainly isn't [p].

There is a bit of dialectal variation, but I'd say this is still broadly true. It's quite possible that there's more in america than [p]. It's also possible that because it's a strictly phonetic category it's difficult to hear. Either way, it can be difficult to tell apart and [p] for many english speakers.

Word-initially in everyday speech in my dialect at least, /b/ really is [p]. However, there is considerable variation in VOT across registers for me, as when I am approximating General American I typically fully voice /b/ and /g/ when they fall between vowels, including across word boundaries, whereas in dialect all lenis plosives except unelided flapped intervocalic /d/ are voiceless by default in any position for me. Also, there is considerable dialectal variation here; my dialect typically merges unstressed intervocalic /b/, /ɡ/, and /d͡ʒ/ with /p/, /k/, and /t͡ʃ/ as [p], [k], and [t͡ʃ] respectively (or [b̥], [d̥], and [d̥͡ʒ̊] respectively, but that is just notation), distinguishing the pairs only by preceding vowel length, but even other dialects in the Upper Midwest may pattern differently, such as distinguishing them when intervocalic as [β], [ɣ], and [t͡ʃ] versus [pʰ], [kʰ], and [t͡ʃʰ].

[AnTeallach]

3. What is voicing? It, too, turns out to be more complex than first meets the eye. Classically speaking, voicing (or "modal" voice) is defined as the vibration produced by the glottis when it is held in a certain position on its continuum, a tighter position than for voiceless sounds. However, the actual vibration is highly sensitive to disruption by certain factors. One of them is if there is too much air pressure in the oral cavity ahead of the glottis; this quickly dampens the glottal vibration to nothing. This is not much of an issue when pronouncing fricatives, nasals, vowels, and so forth, because air continues to escape the mouth during their articulation so oral pressure never gets too high to maintain the vibration. Stops are different. They completely close off the escape of air from the mouth for a short time during their articulation. During this time, oral air pressure rises as incoming air from the lungs builds up in the mouth, and this cuts off glottal vibration.

Many languages with voiced stops compensate by moving muscles in the mouth to increase the volume of the oral cavity so as to accomodate incoming air, thus preserving the glottal vibration; English does not do this. It permits the vibration to cease during the closure of a stop. So English lenis stops are "voiced" in the sense that they are always pronounced with the glottis held in the correct position for voicing, but not in the sense that the vibration actually continues during stop closure. The voicing vibration returns instantly upon the release of the stop, because the oral air pressure returns to normal at that time. This gives them a much earlier VOT than the fortis stops have.

Presumably a canonical unaspirated [p] has a more open setting of the glottis (the "voiceless" setting, rather than the "modal voice" one).

[finlay]

The IPA, I think deliberately, doesn't address such issues - it's underspecified. So you're perfectly welcome to say that [b̥] is different from [p] in that way, but you really ought to establish this before using it, at least in academic writing.

[Travis B.]

The IPA, I think deliberately, doesn't address such issues - it's underspecified. So you're perfectly welcome to say that [b̥] is different from [p] in that way, but you really ought to establish this before using it, at least in academic writing.

When I write [p] versus [b̥], I normally do so as a means of accommodating a range of VOT and duration-of-stoppage variation without necessarily implying significant aspiration, such that the two may be the same at times, but they are not guaranteed to always refer to the same thing. It is also a concession to conventional transcription practices without actually compromising the validity of what is literally represented (as, say, marking a voiceless bilabial stop with would).

[Io]

Word-initially in everyday speech in my dialect at least, /b/ really is [p].

Your [p]s must be different from the [p]s I'm used to then. And by your I mean English and American.

[Whimemsz]

Word-initially in everyday speech in my dialect at least, /b/ really is [p].

Your [p]s must be different from the [p]s I'm used to then. And by your I mean English and American.

Well he specifically mentions that he's only talking about his specific dialect of Wisconsinite Midwestern American English. I mean I speak General Am and I have something that's about halfway between canonical and [p] (and yes I have taken spectrograms to confirm this!)

[Io]

Yes, Whimsey, and I happen to have a good friend from WI, of course just because they're both from WI doesn't mean they have the same accent, but like with many other things about Travis's accent I'd believe it when I hear it. I do believe that you have something that's halfway and [p], I'm just yet to hear a real [p] for /b/, in English.

[Whimemsz]

Yes, Whimsey, and I happen to have a good friend from WI, of course just because they're both from WI doesn't mean they have the same accent, but like with many other things about Travis's accent I'd believe it when I hear it. I do believe that you have something that's halfway and [p], I'm just yet to hear a real [p] for /b/, in English.

Oh, okay. Then I am in full agreement with you! Carry on.

[Rory]

Here's a secret that may help solve this puzzle. Phoneticians don't want the public to know this, but the truth must out!

There is no [p]

[Io]

Oh, okay. Then I am in full agreement with you! Carry on.

I read this twice, and only the third time did I read 'agreement' as 'agreement' and not 'argument'.

Sigh.

[Whimemsz]

:(

(you know I love you, Io!)

[Travis B.]

Yes, Whimsey, and I happen to have a good friend from WI, of course just because they're both from WI doesn't mean they have the same accent, but like with many other things about Travis's accent I'd believe it when I hear it. I do believe that you have something that's halfway and [p], I'm just yet to hear a real [p] for /b/, in English.

I should note that I am used to quite a bit of variation in how people speak back in Wisconsin. And that is just in southeastern Wisconsin. I try to take this into account in my transcriptions, but they only go so far, as there are significant points of variation that are hard to take into account across the board. And I must say it is rather bothersome people people are like "well, I know someone in Wisconsin, and they don't sound like that" - as that assumes that how people speak there is far more uniform than it actually is. Even to me, there are other younger people in the Milwaukee area that sound clearly "accented"*, and conversely I do sound "accented" to some younger people in the Milwaukee area**. And that is aside from there being many other points of variation even in the speech of younger people that just are not quite as intuitively noticeable but are still significant phonetically***.

* such as in having a highly centralized historical /oʊ̯/ and/or /uː/, turning /uː/ into a diphthong with an unrounded on-glide after coronals, or having stressed historical /æ/ as [i̯ɛ], something I picked up from my ex but did not have natively
** such as all but invariably eliding non-sibilant alveolars in unstressed intervocalic environments, which is normal for many younger people from Wauwatosa but not nearly as commonplace for people from, say, the South Side
*** such as whether the affricates in /tr/, /dr/, and /str/ are retroflex or merely palatoalveolar or alveolopalatal and just how open or closed the offglide resulting from vocalized coda /l/ and the vowel resulting from syllabic /l/ is

[finlay]

Here's a secret that may help solve this puzzle. Phoneticians don't want the public to know this, but the truth must out!

There is no [p]

<3
God, I need to brush up on my phonetics...

FWIW, I do hear myself saying [p]. Perceptually, the boundary for english speakers is somewhere around the +20ms VOT mark (the exact place varies per POA), meaning that things around 0ms VOT are perceived as the lenis version. I did once get shown an elegant demonstration of this.