Silent sounds with articulation?

[mira]

I'm working on some phonotactics and am wondering about some extremely pedantic bits of pronunciation. I have it so /(vowel) (plosive) θ/ becomes /(vowel) ʔ θ/, but I want the speaker to make the right mouth shape to say the plosive, but not actually say it. For instance, if they read /apθ/, the sounds would be /aʔθ/, but they would make the shape for a /p/, just not actually make the /p/ sound as they're producing the glottal stop.

How would I represent this? Is there a diacritic in IPA for it?

[Frislander]

I'm working on some phonotactics and am wondering about some extremely pedantic bits of pronunciation. I have it so /(vowel) (plosive) θ/ becomes /(vowel) ʔ θ/, but I want the speaker to make the right mouth shape to say the plosive, but not actually say it. For instance, if they read /apθ/, the sounds would be /aʔθ/, but they would make the shape for a /p/, just not actually make the /p/ sound as they're producing the glottal stop.

How would I represent this? Is there a diacritic in IPA for it?

Sound likeno audible release which has the diacritic [◌̚]. It's not turning the consonant into a glottal stop per se but that's the closest it gets.

[mira]

I'm working on some phonotactics and am wondering about some extremely pedantic bits of pronunciation. I have it so /(vowel) (plosive) θ/ becomes /(vowel) ʔ θ/, but I want the speaker to make the right mouth shape to say the plosive, but not actually say it. For instance, if they read /apθ/, the sounds would be /aʔθ/, but they would make the shape for a /p/, just not actually make the /p/ sound as they're producing the glottal stop.

How would I represent this? Is there a diacritic in IPA for it?

Sound likeno audible release which has the diacritic [◌̚]. It's not turning the consonant into a glottal stop per se but that's the closest it gets.

That seems right. So would this create an audible gap in the speech like a glottal stop but not actually one?

[Frislander]

I'm working on some phonotactics and am wondering about some extremely pedantic bits of pronunciation. I have it so /(vowel) (plosive) θ/ becomes /(vowel) ʔ θ/, but I want the speaker to make the right mouth shape to say the plosive, but not actually say it. For instance, if they read /apθ/, the sounds would be /aʔθ/, but they would make the shape for a /p/, just not actually make the /p/ sound as they're producing the glottal stop.

How would I represent this? Is there a diacritic in IPA for it?

Sound likeno audible release which has the diacritic [◌̚]. It's not turning the consonant into a glottal stop per se but that's the closest it gets.

That seems right. So would this create an audible gap in the speech like a glottal stop but not actually one?

Sort of, and diachronically that's often what they become (e.g. Northern Chinese varieties (Mandarin, Wu, Jin) debuccalising coda stops, later being lost in Mandarin).

[Creyeditor]

I'm working on some phonotactics and am wondering about some extremely pedantic bits of pronunciation. I have it so /(vowel) (plosive) θ/ becomes /(vowel) ʔ θ/, but I want the speaker to make the right mouth shape to say the plosive, but not actually say it. For instance, if they read /apθ/, the sounds would be /aʔθ/, but they would make the shape for a /p/, just not actually make the /p/ sound as they're producing the glottal stop.

How would I represent this? Is there a diacritic in IPA for it?

Sound likeno audible release which has the diacritic [◌̚]. It's not turning the consonant into a glottal stop per se but that's the closest it gets.

That seems right. So would this create an audible gap in the speech like a glottal stop but not actually one?

Acoustically that's a pretty accurate description.

[Adarain]

Tangentially, Swiss German has geminate plosives. If those show up phrase-initially, there's no way to acoustically perceive it, but they're still articulated as geminates.

[mira]

Tangentially, Swiss German has geminate plosives. If those show up phrase-initially, there's no way to acoustically perceive it, but they're still articulated as geminates.

I'm using as part of the phonotactics where a plosive comes before /θ/. For example, if a person were to write "apc", it would go to the phonotactics as /apθ/, but come out as /ap̚θ/.

[HoskhMatriarch]

Tangentially, Swiss German has geminate plosives. If those show up phrase-initially, there's no way to acoustically perceive it, but they're still articulated as geminates.

Isn't there also some sort of other difference between the fortis and lenis plosives though? I mean, if it's just gemination, I'm not sure why people go to all the trouble to call it "fortis" and "lenis". I know in the NW Caucasian languages with it supposedly there is some other difference besides just length.

[mira]

Tangentially, Swiss German has geminate plosives. If those show up phrase-initially, there's no way to acoustically perceive it, but they're still articulated as geminates.

Isn't there also some sort of other difference between the fortis and lenis plosives though? I mean, if it's just gemination, I'm not sure why people go to all the trouble to call it "fortis" and "lenis". I know in the NW Caucasian languages with it supposedly there is some other difference besides just length.

I get confused by this far too much. What's gemination?

[Adarain]

Gemination is simply lengthening of consonants.

Swiss German fortis consonants are geminate, at least in some dialects. I think the main source of confusion is that Swiss German has quite a few dialects. I know some speakers make a voicing distinction instead, aspiration shows up sometimes (my fortis /k/ is aspirated initially, for example), it's basically just a big mess. See this paper: http://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.p ... /6302/3290

[sangi39]

Gemination is simply lengthening of consonants.

Swiss German fortis consonants are geminate, at least in some dialects. I think the main source of confusion is that Swiss German has quite a few dialects. I know some speakers make a voicing distinction instead, aspiration shows up sometimes (my fortis /k/ is aspirated initially, for example), it's basically just a big mess. See this paper: http://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.p ... /6302/3290

And just to build on what Adarain has said, generally speaking where you find the terms "lenis" and "fortis" used, what's usually being referred to is some binary distinction between one set of sounds and a similar set of sounds which are usually distinguished by several different features, sometimes depending on their environment, e.g. whether they're word-initial, word-medial, preceded by another consonant, etc.

In English, for example, /p/ and /b/ are varying distinguished, depending on their environment, by aspiration, voicing and glottalisation.

Similarly, the Korean "fortis" and "lenis" consonants are similarly distinguished by multiple different means (both opposing the apparently strictly aspirated plosives), included glottal constriction, voicing and syllable tone.

And, as Adarain points out, the fortis consonant of some German dialects appear as geminate, aspirated or voiceless depending on their environment.



"Fortis" and "lenis" as generic terms don't actually really mean anything other than "acoustically stronger" and "acoustically weaker" respective, but they can be incredibly useful terms when dealing with specific languages where the distinction between two contrasting, yet similar, sounds is more complex than voiced vs. voiceless or aspirated vs. unaspirated (incidentally, this is one of the reasons why you'll see the unvoiced diacritic used in languages like Danish).

[mira]

So if I geminate /k/, would I get a kind of slightly aspirated sound, a bit like /kx/?

[Frislander]

So if I geminate /k/, would I get a kind of slightly aspirated sound, a bit like /kx/?

Not necessarily: I don't think Finnish geminates have any aspiration, for instance.

[CrazyEttin]

So if I geminate /k/, would I get a kind of slightly aspirated sound, a bit like /kx/?

Not necessarily: I don't think Finnish geminates have any aspiration, for instance.

Yeah, the only difference is the length of the hold.

[HoskhMatriarch]

Gemination is simply lengthening of consonants.

Swiss German fortis consonants are geminate, at least in some dialects. I think the main source of confusion is that Swiss German has quite a few dialects. I know some speakers make a voicing distinction instead, aspiration shows up sometimes (my fortis /k/ is aspirated initially, for example), it's basically just a big mess. See this paper: http://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.p ... /6302/3290

And just to build on what Adarain has said, generally speaking where you find the terms "lenis" and "fortis" used, what's usually being referred to is some binary distinction between one set of sounds and a similar set of sounds which are usually distinguished by several different features, sometimes depending on their environment, e.g. whether they're word-initial, word-medial, preceded by another consonant, etc.

In English, for example, /p/ and /b/ are varying distinguished, depending on their environment, by aspiration, voicing and glottalisation.

I don't think people like calling English stops "fortis" and "lenis" though. Whenever I say "English fortis and lenis plosives" people tend to be somewhere from dismissive to hostile, so I stopped saying that and just went back to voiced/unvoiced even though they're really not.

So if I geminate /k/, would I get a kind of slightly aspirated sound, a bit like /kx/?

Well, a geminate consonant is just held longer, although sometimes they turn into aspirated consonants in sound changes.

[sangi39]

Gemination is simply lengthening of consonants.

Swiss German fortis consonants are geminate, at least in some dialects. I think the main source of confusion is that Swiss German has quite a few dialects. I know some speakers make a voicing distinction instead, aspiration shows up sometimes (my fortis /k/ is aspirated initially, for example), it's basically just a big mess. See this paper: http://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.p ... /6302/3290

And just to build on what Adarain has said, generally speaking where you find the terms "lenis" and "fortis" used, what's usually being referred to is some binary distinction between one set of sounds and a similar set of sounds which are usually distinguished by several different features, sometimes depending on their environment, e.g. whether they're word-initial, word-medial, preceded by another consonant, etc.

In English, for example, /p/ and /b/ are varying distinguished, depending on their environment, by aspiration, voicing and glottalisation.

I don't think people like calling English stops "fortis" and "lenis" though. Whenever I say "English fortis and lenis plosives" people tend to be somewhere from dismissive to hostile, so I stopped saying that and just went back to voiced/unvoiced even though they're really not.

Uh huh... This normally depends one who you're talking to. Sure, some people do dismiss "lenis" vs "fortis" because, again, it's become a very language specific term, but other accept it because, as has been pointed out, voicing isn't the only thing distinguishing, say, English /k/ and /g/ (and the same is true of related languages like Icelandic and Danish). Where you're getting "hostile" responses, though, a) look at where they're coming from and b) why is their "analysis" better than that of others.

(honestly, I doubt anyone in their right mind would get angry over "lenis vs fortis" as opposed to "voiced vs voiceless")

[HoskhMatriarch]

Well, the hostile responses usually are because "fortis and lenis don't mean anything". I think terms that "don't mean anything" are better than terms that just aren't accurate though.

[sangi39]

Well, the hostile responses usually are because "fortis and lenis don't mean anything". I think terms that "don't mean anything" are better than terms that just aren't accurate though.

The thing is, they don't mean anything generally except for "strong" and "weak". If you're going to use them you then have to specify what exactly those two terms mean in relation to that specific language. You could choose voicing, because that might be the primary distinction, or it might be aspiration (and the only way to test that is to see what speakers think when you play around with them, e.g. stop pronouncing /p/ with aspiration and see if speakers perceive it as /b/ instead).

At some point, though, if the distinction is complex, rather than a simple contrast of voiced vs. voiceless or aspirated vs. unaspirated, you're going to have to go into detail as to what that distinction actually is, and at that point, it's more about consistent use of terminology and presentation that anything else.

In other words, for English, if you say "lenis vs. fortis", you have to explain then and there what those terms mean. If, on the other hand, you say "voiced vs. voiceless", at some point you're going to have to point out that voicing isn't the only thing distinguishing them, but you're sticking with "voiced" and "voiceless" for whatever reason.