Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Fortis stops in Australian Aboriginal languages such as Rembarunga (see Ngalakgan) also involve length, with short consonants having weak contact and intermittent voicing, and long consonants having 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 ...
All languages in the world have occlusives [2] and most have at least the voiceless stops [p], [t], [k] and the nasals [n], and [m].However, there are exceptions. Colloquial Samoan lacks the coronals [t] and [n], and several North American languages, such as the northern Iroquoian languages, lack the labials [p] and [m].
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies voicing and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation.
For example, Robert Blust showed that Kelabit, a language of the Sarawak highlands in Borneo, [5] has a system of stops consisting of voiceless stops, plain voiced stops, and prevoiced stops with voiceless aspiration. This is similar to the traditional reconstruction of the stop series of Proto-Indo-European, which include voiceless, voiced ...
If the vocal cords are completely relaxed, with the arytenoid cartilages apart for maximum airflow, the cords do not vibrate. This is voiceless phonation, and is extremely common with obstruents. If the arytenoids are pressed together for glottal closure, the vocal cords block the airstream, producing stop sounds such as the glottal stop.
Stops, chiefly the voiceless stops, and especially /t/, are frequently glottalized or pre-glottalized in certain positions; that is, a stop may be replaced with the glottal stop [ʔ], or else a glottal stop may be inserted before it. These phenomena are strongly dependent on the phonetic environment and on dialect.
Voiceless stops and affricates /p, t, k, tʃ/ are longer than their voiced counterparts /b, d, ɡ, dʒ/ when situated at the end of a syllable. Try comparing "cap" to "cab" or "back" to "bag". When a stop comes before another stop, the explosion of air only follows after the second stop, illustrated in words like "apt" [æp̚t] and "rubbed ...
Preceding voiceless stops are then glottally released: Latten [ˈlat͡ʔn̩] ('laths'), Nacken [ˈnak͡ʔŋ̍] ('nape of the neck'). When such a stop is additionally preceded by a homorganic sonorant , it tends to be debuccalized entirely and create the clusters [mʔm̩, lʔn̩, nʔn̩, ŋʔŋ̍] .