Whispered voiced consonents (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Whispered voiced consonents
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

Nudimmud
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United States
Joined 5193 days ago
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Studies: Greek, Korean

Message 1 of 3

01 April 2011 at 10:33am | IP Logged

I was just reading Elements of Old English and read a footnote I hadn't noticed before:

Vowels and consonants that are ordinarily voiced can also be whispered. In whispering, the opening of the glottis (i.e. the space between the vocal cords) is such that the passage of the stream of air causes friction but not those regular vibrations that characterize voice. Speakers of English very commonly whisper the last of two voiced consonants that terminate a word followed by a pause (e.g. leaves).

I had never noticed that before, nor, in the various books on linguistics that I've read, do I remember running across anything mentioning that as an aspect of phonology. I'm wondering what the prevalence is of that pronunciation -- are there are languages where the above consonant combination is whispered? (Or perhaps NOT whispered. Both Greek and Korean avoid terminal stops, especially when followed by a pause.) More interesting still would be a language where such a distinction was phonemically significant.
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egill
Diglot
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Speaks: Mandarin, English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch

Message 2 of 3

01 April 2011 at 8:19pm | IP Logged

Nudimmud wrote:

I was just reading Elements of Old English and read a footnote I hadn't noticed before:

Vowels and consonants that are ordinarily voiced can also be whispered. In whispering, the opening of the glottis (i.e.
the space between the vocal cords) is such that the passage of the stream of air causes friction but not those regular
vibrations that characterize voice. Speakers of English very commonly whisper the last of two voiced consonants that
terminate a word followed by a pause (e.g. leaves).

I had never noticed that before, nor, in the various books on linguistics that I've read, do I remember running across
anything mentioning that as an aspect of phonology. I'm wondering what the prevalence is of that pronunciation -- are
there are languages where the above consonant combination is whispered? (Or perhaps NOT whispered. Both Greek and Korean
avoid terminal stops, especially when followed by a pause.) More interesting still would be a language where such a
distinction was phonemically significant.

Probably referring to breathy voice

Lots of Indic and Bantu languages have them.
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Nudimmud
Groupie
United States
Joined 5193 days ago
87 posts - 161 votes

Studies: Greek, Korean

Message 3 of 3

01 April 2011 at 9:33pm | IP Logged

Quote:

Probably referring to breathy voice

Lots of Indic and Bantu languages have them.

The description of breathy voice does seem like it might match the phenomena, though I'm not sure since unlike a whisper breathy voice is still somewhat voiced.

Also, no mention is made of English having breathy voice, though that could be because it's not used phonemically.

Edited by Nudimmud on 02 April 2011 at 6:55pm

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