Talk:Aspirated consonant

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disputed

Aspiration for certain words is a lie. It depends on the air demand through speaking, and the speaker's preference—at least, on mine. lysdexia 12:39, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, but anyone who has ever studied the phonetics of English in even the most cursory detail will learn that aspiration is an essential part of the voiceless stop series in English. Nohat 20:11, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Lysdexia that there is some variation in whether or not a stop in a certain position in aspirated. I don't know about initial stops in stressed syllables; as far as I can tell, they are nearly always aspirated by native English speakers. But stops in other positions can be aspirated or not depending on a number of factors. Most noticeably I think is whether the speaker is speaking naturally, or consciously articulating for clarity, as is often done in singing, acting, delivering a speech, or speaking on the radio. For example, speak

To be or not to be; that is the question.

carefully putting emphasis on not and that. Many speakers (myself included) will articulate the t at the end of each of those words, even though those stops are in positions where they are usually not aspirated. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 03:30, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Aspiration is merely a function of voice onset time. If a stop is released before voicing or closure for another consonant, then there will be aspiration. This is what happens when you articulate words in citation form. The particular rules for the aspiration of [p], [t], and [k] in English, are found on voiceless bilabial plosive, voiceless alveolar plosive, and voiceless velar plosive, respectively. Lysdexia's assertion, on the other hand, that aspiration has anything to do with "speaker's preference" is not based any evidence or linguistic theory that I've ever encountered. Nohat 04:06, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a question of strict definition, then - is the puff of air after the carefully enunciated "not" and "that" in the quote considered an aspiration? I note that when I try the example "top" vs. "stop", I do indeed aspirate the 't' only with the first word, but I also aspirate the final 'p' of either word - unless I consciously speak with an American-style accent and suppress the puff of air, sounding as many people I know would (but I would not in normal speech).

Voice onset time is the easiest way of measuring aspiration, but it's not the same thing! It is possible to articulate consonants with a lot of air pressure – so that voice onset time is necessarily much delayed – but without aspiration. Aspiration is not a strong release, it is a release into [h]. When there's nothing going on in the glottis, there's no aspiration.

What the above name- and dateless comment means by "suppressing the puff of air" is something yet again different: unreleased consonants – no audible release at all.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 00:46 CEST | 2006/5/5

As for the second point, agreed. As for the first, I'm not sure I follow. Nothing much does go on with the glottis during aspiration. If you release a consonant, and voicing is delayed, then you have a period where the airstream is passing through the glottis without voicing. That is pretty much an [h], and therefore is aspiration. If there is no airflow, then you might have a glottal stop - you see this with some click consonants. That should perhaps be clarified. I can't think of another way you'd get that effect within a phonological word. kwami 01:35, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that aspiration is NOT strong release. Although the 'blowing out a cadle' does reliably show aspiration, this notion is standardly defined by the classics (Wells, Roach), as well as other phonetic references, in terms of VOT - it is the period of no voicing between the consonant ad the following vowel. I am of course open to correction, but I strongly feel the author should either furnish references, or edit this fragment of the entry. Ariosto 21:38, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

clean-up

This article doesn't flow well at all and is very poorly organized. I might try and clean it up a bit later, but I'd like to get some input on how to do so first. --Lesouris 15:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]