Fortis and lenis

Fortis (Latin "strong") and lenis ("weak") are linguistic terms. They refer in a vague way to the opposition between "stronger" and "weaker" (or "more tense" vs. "more lax") consonants, such as the distinction between p, t and b, d. These terms were used, and may have originated, in 19th century German linguistics to describe languages such as southern German where consonants such as b, d are voiceless but nonetheless different from p, t. The terms fortis and lenis are also used in current descriptions for the contrast in consonants in many Zapotec languages.

Unlike phenomena such as voice or consonant length, the terms "fortis" and "lenis" do not clearly correlate to any specific articulatory or acoustic feature. Rather, they are impressionistic terms used to describe an audible distinction between related sounds, where the actual articulatory features underlying the distinction are unknown or unimportant. In such cases, the actual distinction is typically one of voice, length, aspiration, presence or absence of secondary articulation such as glottalization or velarization, differing length of nearby vowels, etc., or some combination of such features. In the case of the southern German dialects, the actual distinction underlying pairs like b and p varies somewhat depending on the dialect, but is often one of length—originally voiceless sounds like p are pronounced geminated in all positions in a word, even at the end of a word or before another consonant.

It is sometimes said that tenseness is what distinguishes fortis and lenis in the narrow sense: In the articulation of the fortis, more muscular energy is supposedly used. However, this has never been demonstrated.

Opposition of p, t versus b, d

Voice onset time
+ Aspirated
0 Tenuis
− Voiced

Normally, the opposition of consonants such as p, t vs. b, d is described in terms of voiceless consonants vs. voiced consonants. There are languages where this is indeed the only feature that distinguishes them (e.g. French [p, t] vs. [b, d]). In many languages, however, the phonetic voice is only one of several features that constitutes this opposition (e.g. English: IPA [pʰ, tʰ] vs. [b, d]). There are even languages where the phonetic voice is not a distinctive feature of these pairs at all (e.g. southern German, Danish, Estonian or Mandarin: IPA [pʰ, tʰ] vs. [p, t]).

The terms fortis and lenis (in the wide sense) apply to this opposition regardless of whether it's only an opposition of voice or not. Using English as an example, consonants such as 't' and 'd' coming at the end of a word are distinguished in multiple ways:

• /d/ is voiced, but /t/ is not
• /d/ (and other voiced sounds) cause the previous vowel to lengthen, whereas /t/ does not
• /t/ (and other voiceless stops) are often pronounced with a simultaneous glottal stop, whereas /d/ is not

Hence, if we devoice a voiced consonant such as 'd' at the end of a word for ease of articulation, the fortis / lenis distinction is still present—due to the length of the previous vowel and the presence or absence of a glottal stop. (Note that this is not true in languages such as Polish or German, where voiced and voiceless consonants merge completely at the end of a word.) Thus, using the terms voiced and voiceless may be a misleading way of describing the distinction between 't' and 'd', whereas the terms fortis and lenis allow us to describe the distinction in a general way, without getting tripped up by the specifics.

Examples

In Korean, a higher fundamental frequency of vowels following certain 'tense' consonants is thought to be a result of increased muscular tension in the vocal cords, a phonation called stiff voice. Underlyingly, such consonants are marked in a number of ways, such as gemination and partial laryngealization.

In Swiss German, no evidence of increased muscular tension has been found, and the distinction appears to be primarily based on gemination.

The North Caucasian languages (Circassian and Dagestanian) have a consonantal distinction described as strong or preruptive that has concomitant length. Akhvakh and other Dagestanian languages even possess a distinction between strong/long and weak/short ejective consonants: [qʼaː] soup, broth vs. [qʼːama] cock's comb. (Tense phonemes in these languages are traditionally transcribed with the length diacritic, following the Cyrillic orthography of these languages.) Kodzasov (1977:228, translated in L&M 1996:97–98) describes them for Archi: "Strong phonemes are characterized by the intensiveness (tension) of the articulation. The intensity of the pronunciation leads to a natural lengthening of the duration of the sound, and that is why strong [consonants] differ from weak ones by greater length. [However,] the adjoining of two single weak sounds does not produce a strong one […] Thus, the gemination of a sound does not by itself create its tension." Nonetheless, Ladefoged and Maddieson examined Kodzasov's Archi recordings, and their impression was that "length should be given the primary role; strong consonants have approximately twice the duration of weak ones, and they often do result from adjoining two single consonants, at least morphologically speaking. The patterns in other Dagestanian languages are similar, but some Agul dialects have an especially large number of permitted initial long consonants." Fortis stops in Australian languages such as Rembarrnga also involve length, with short consonants having weak contact and intermittent voicing, and long consonants full closure, a more powerful release burst, and no voicing. It is not clear if strength makes the consonants long, or if during long consonants there is greater opportunity for full articulation.

Articulatory strength can reinforce other distinctions. The Ewe language, for example, which contrasts a voiceless bilabial fricative /ɸ/ and a voiceless labiodental fricative /f/, pronounces the /f/ markedly more strongly than /f/ in most languages, in contrast with the weaker /ɸ/. This helps differentiate what would otherwise be an exceedingly subtle distinction. Phonetically, a diacritic from the Extensions to the IPA can be used to indicate this strong articulation: [ɸ] vs. [f͈].

In the Mixe-Zoquean language Mixe the distinction between consonants described as fortis and lenis has been demonstrated to be one of quantity: fortis consonants are pronounced longer than their lenis counterparts, and they are also not prone to voicing in voiced environments such as the lenis consonants are.

Notation

The IPA provides no specific means for representation of a fortis-lenis contrast. The Extensions to the IPA provide a diacritic for strong articulation (for instance [t͈]) and weak articulation (for instance [t͉]). As these diacritics are not part of the standard IPA and are seldom used, there are a number of other notations:

• The fortis-lenis contrast may be transcribed with plain [p t k f s x …] vs. [b d ɡ v z ɣ …] even though this is in contradiction to their IPA definition that relies solely on voice. This notation emphasizes that the voice contrast and the fortis-lenis contrast are thought of as manifestations of a common sound feature.
• The fortis-lenis contrast may be transcribed as a gemination contrast ([pː tː kː fː sː xː …] or [pp tt kk ff ss xx …] vs. [p t k f s x …]). This emphasizes that it is unrelated to the voice contrast.
• The fortis-lenis contrast may be transcribed as [p t k f s x …] vs. [b̥ d̥ ɡ̊ v̥ z̥ ɣ̊ …], that is, the lenes are marked with the IPA diacritic for voicelessness. By strict IPA definition, this appears contradictory because if [p] and [b] differ but in their voicedness, then a [b̥] that is voiceless should be identical to a [p]. This notation emphasizes that there is more than just voice to the contrast between [p t k f s x …] vs. [b̥ d̥ ɡ̊ v̥ z̥ ɣ̊ …]. It is sometimes used in the transcription of Southern German dialects such as Alsatian or Swiss German.

See also

• Irish phonology
• Tenseness

Literature

• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.

External links

• fortis and lenis