Slack voice
| Phonation |
|---|
| Glottal states |
| From open to closed: |
| Voicelessness (full airstream) |
| Breathy voice (murmur) |
| Slack voice |
| Modal voice (maximum vibration) |
| Stiff voice |
| Creaky voice (restricted airstream) |
| Glottalized (blocked airstream) |
| Supra-glottal phonation |
| Faucalized voice ("hollow") |
| Harsh voice ("pressed") |
| Strident (harsh trilled) |
| Non-phonemic phonation |
| Whisper |
| Falsetto |
 |
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The term slack voice (or lax voice) describes the pronunciation of consonant or vowels with a glottal opening slightly wider than that occurring in modal voice. Such sounds are often referred to informally as lenis or half-voiced in the case of consonants. In some Chinese languages, such as Wu, and in many Austronesian languages, the 'intermediate' phonation of slack plosives confuses listeners of languages without these distinctions, so that different transcription systems may use /p/ or /b/ for the same consonant. Although the IPA has no dedicated diacritic for slack voice, the voiceless diacritic (the under-ring) may be used with a voiced consonant letter, though this convention is also used for partially voiced consonants in languages such as English.[1]
Wu Chinese "muddy" consonants are slack voice, the primary effect of which is a slightly breathy quality of the following vowel[1]
| Wu Chinese | form | Chinese character | translation | form | Chinese character | translation | form | Chinese Character | translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| slack voice | [b̥ʌ̀ʔ] | 白 | white | [d̥ǐ] | 地 | earth | [ɡ̊ə̀ʔ] | 個 | (possessive particle) |
| tenuis | [pʌ́ʔ] | 百 | hundred | [tíʔ] | 的 | (a grammatical particle) | [kóʔ] | 角 | corner |
| aspirated | [pʰʌ́ʔ] | 拍 | to strike | [tʰî] | 天 | sky | [kʰʌ́ʔ] | 客 | guest |
Javanese contrasts slack and stiff voiced bilabial, dental, retroflex, and velar plosives.[1]
| phonation | IPA | trans. | IPA | trans. | IPA | translation | IPA | trans. | IPA | trans. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stiff voice | [b̬aku] | nail | [d̬amu] | guest | [d̬z̬ariʔ] | sheet (of paper) | [ɖ̬iɖ̬iʔ] | little | [ɡ̌ali] | river |
| slack voice | [b̥aku] | standard | [d̥amu] | blow | [d̥z̥arit] | (type of women's clothing) | [ɖ̥isiʔ] | first | [ɡ̊ali] | to dig |
Parauk contrasts slack voicing in its vowels. The contrast is between "slightly stiff" and "slightly breathy" vowels; the first are between modal and stiff voice, while the latter are captured by slack voice.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.
