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Initial voicing is a process of historical sound change in which voiceless consonants become voiced at the beginning of a word. For example, modern German sagen [ˈzaːɡn̩] , Yiddish זאָגן [ˈzɔɡn̩] , and Dutch zeggen [ˈzɛɣə] (all "say") all begin with [z] , which derives from [s] in an earlier stage of Germanic, as is still ...
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) has distinct letters for many voiceless and modally voiced pairs of consonants (the obstruents), such as [p b], [t d], [k ɡ], [q ɢ], [f v], and [s z]. Also, there are diacritics for voicelessness, U+ 0325 ̥ COMBINING RING BELOW and U+ 030A ̊ COMBINING RING ABOVE , which is used for letters with a ...
Such processes allow English speakers to continue to perceive difference between voiced and voiceless consonants when the devoicing of the former would otherwise make them sound identical to the latter. English has four pairs of fricative phonemes that can be divided into a table by place of articulation and voicing. The voiced fricatives can ...
Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s, *h, *hʷ, following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives * β, *ð, *z, *ɣ, *ɣʷ. [1] The law was formulated by Karl Verner, and first published in 1877.
Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only. It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.
An example with geminate consonants comes from Finnish, where geminates become simple consonants while retaining voicing or voicelessness (e.g. katto → katon, dubbaan → dubata). It is also possible for entire consonant clusters to undergo lenition, as in Votic, where voiceless clusters become voiced, e.g. itke-"to cry" → idgön.
Norwegian and Swedish do not have final devoicing, and Danish does not even have voiced obstruents that could be devoiced. As in Danish, Icelandic stops are voiceless, but it has voiced fricatives which may also occur word-finally. Gothic (an East Germanic language) also developed final devoicing independently, but only for fricatives.
Flapping or tapping, also known as alveolar flapping, intervocalic flapping, or t-voicing, is a phonological process involving a voiced alveolar tap or flap; it is found in many varieties of English, especially North American, Cardiff, Ulster, Australian and New Zealand English, where the voiceless alveolar stop consonant phoneme /t/ is pronounced as a voiced alveolar flap [ɾ], a sound ...