Re: Possible Record for Slow on the Uptake

: Butch Malahide <fred.galvin@xxxxxxxxx>
: What about "tie dye"? The T is aspirated but not the D.

Eh. Try whispering "tie dye" vs "dye tie" to somebody, and take care to
speak in a monotone and whisper them evenly, see if they can reliably
tell which you meant. It's possible they could. As I said, there's a
very slight difference in tongue position between "d" and "t" the way
I pronouce them, which *can* be heard if you're listening very *very*
closely.

I note that wikipedia states that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspiration_(phonetics)
Voiceless aspiration occurs when the vocal cords remain open after a
consonant is released. An easy way to measure this is by noting the
consonant's voice onset time, as the voicing of a following vowel
cannot begin until the vocal cords close.

so aspriation is very closely related to voicing. So closely that
imo it's fairly reasonable (or reasonably fair) to say that the "only"
difference between "t" and "d" is voicing. And note that "t" has an
un-aspirated form, which is affected by voicing of the sounds before
and after the "t"; that form is very *very* difficult to tell from a
"d" when whispering.


Wayne Throop throopw@xxxxxxxxx http://sheol.org/throopw
.

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