Definitions
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- verb Present participle of
devoice .
Etymologies
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Examples
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Regardless, voice in pharyngealized stops is non-contrastive in Proto-Semitic (unlike Arabic) so it seems to me that musing on a theoretical "devoicing" of such voiced emphatics (as you suggest) which would thus lack voiceless counterparts is probably leading us astray.
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With devoicing of the initial dental due to the s-mobile, but a still existant *bʰ.
PIE "look-alike stems" - Evidence of something or a red herring? 2009
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Yes, in theory devoicing itself would not be the cause, only the symptom.
Japanese dialect mirrors suspected PIE development of sibilantization between two dental stops 2009
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Friction is caused by the tongue, regardless of voice but it just so happens however that without an example of *-dhdh-, all examples of spirantization in PIE that I'm aware of simultaneously show devoicing.
Japanese dialect mirrors suspected PIE development of sibilantization between two dental stops 2009
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So while devoicing is not required for this change to work, nonetheless I can only think of examples that imply devoicing of the original schwa.
Japanese dialect mirrors suspected PIE development of sibilantization between two dental stops 2009
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We can at least say that while the roots Phoenix identifies do indeed appear to "look alike" although this is assessment is a little too subjective for my tastes, there is no clear pattern in voicing or devoicing that we can personally ascertain:
PIE "look-alike stems" - Evidence of something or a red herring? 2009
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Thus there is no contradiction since *dʰ, despite devoicing, is properly paired with *bʰ.
PIE "look-alike stems" - Evidence of something or a red herring? 2009
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Aren't you precisely ascribing allophonic shwa devoicing as the cause of sibilant insertion?
Japanese dialect mirrors suspected PIE development of sibilantization between two dental stops 2009
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With devoicing of the initial dental due to the s-mobile, but a still existant *bʰ.
PIE "look-alike stems" - Evidence of something or a red herring? 2009
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Yes, in theory devoicing itself would not be the cause, only the symptom.
Japanese dialect mirrors suspected PIE development of sibilantization between two dental stops 2009
Telofy commented on the word devoicing
An intriguing paper I'm reading at the moment:
Devoicing of Word-Final /z/ in English
September 17, 2009
hernesheir commented on the word devoicing
Thanks for posting the article, telofy.
I can think of devoicings of other voiced terminal consonants, e.g. "nuffink" for "nothing" in some British English speakers. Of course, devoicing of terminal voiced consonants seems to be a matter of course in German - Bund is pronounced Bunt (sorry, no longer have I command of the international phonemic symbolism, nor its name/acronym, for that matter!).
I wonder about /ng/ as in "nothing" above - in such instances of devoicing, the /n/ component must remain voiced - is there a term or explanation for this apparent "uncoupling" of the /n/ and /g/ of /ng/ when the latter voiced consonant becomes devoiced? Am I asking a dull academic question here? I can't imagine someone hasn't commented on this phenomenon, and hope you're the one to steer me to an answer!
September 17, 2009
madmouth commented on the word devoicing
English speakers devoice word-final obstruents all the time. Just listen carefully the next time someone says 'kid' or 'cab'
September 17, 2009
hernesheir commented on the word devoicing
Do any speakers who devoice terminal consonants chance to take linguistics classes, then consciously "revoice" the consonants as best they can once they become more attuned to their pronunciation? Or do they simply soldier on and marvel and appreciate this surprisingly mutable human form of communication that we call language?
September 17, 2009
Telofy commented on the word devoicing
“-ng�? is a special case, as in all accents that I’m aware of, that “-g�? is completely silent (not merely devoiced). Its influence however is that the “-n-�? is not pronounced /n/ as twice in “pronounced�? but /ŋ/ as in “sing�?; that’s the only sound (on phonemic level) that distinguishes “sing�? (/sɪŋ/) and “sin�? (/sɪn/). (Hence it’s called a minimal pair. For more information please consult The Phonetic Rap.)
At the end of words with more than one syllable that distinction is lost in some accents, for example Southern American English and African American Vernacular English, so that “tappening�? (/ˈtæpənɪŋ/) becomes what is commonly transcribed as “tappenin’�? (/ˈtæpənɪn/).
Nonetheless I’ve heard the hypercorrection /ɹɔŋg/ instead of /ɹɔŋ/ (“wrong�?) in an accent reduction video on youtube when the coach was concentrating very hard—too hard—on enunciating as clear as possible for an audience whose listening comprehension skills she couldn’t know or estimate.
You are right about the special relevance for German native speakers (and Spanish and Italian etc.): “Bund�? (“union�?) and “bunt�? (“colorful�?) are homophones: bʊnt.
Hence undue devoicing in word-final position is a common pronunciation mistake among us. Another study I skimmed over yesterday compared the ability of L2 learners with such native languages to distinguish words whose only difference is in the voicing of a word-final consonant, and to reproduce those words.
The paper I posted yesterday however makes a very important distinction in that it focuses on words in phrase-final position, so it would sound strange and German accented to constantly devoice the word-final “s�?s in sentences like “He ushered the guys out the door.�? but not in “Planes!�? (She devoiced a lot in that video; perhaps it's even a little affected.)
Scott here however demonstrates both very clearly many times (devoicing with “friends�? (z̥) in final position at about 0:03 for example and of course lots and lots of voiced /z/ (z) in mid-sentence) but I guess you guys can observe that on yourselves anyway.
I prefer z̥ and z for distinguishing the sounds because I feel the difference in the intensity of the air stream between z̥ and s rather distinctly when I’m speaking, though I don’t know if I would normally hear it.
Throughout the last one or two weeks I’ve focused on getting the distinction between /s/ (after consonant sounds) and /z/ (after all other sounds) down, which means that I read Gene Wolfe to myself. I already noticed that with some words in some contexts I had this slight epiphanic feeling like “Yeah, of course! That sounds so much better!�? and in other contexts it sounded strange and was even hard to pronounce (only usually that means that I’ll just have to practice more).
Then two days ago we (two friend and I) went to the cinema where we were presented with the 2012 trailer. Of course I had to point out the planes (“Planes! – More planes! – Flying giraffe!�?) but after the first “Planes!�? I became self-consciously aware of (1) my devoiced pronunciation and (2) the fact that two English native speakers were sitting to my left (and probably more behind and in front of me for we were watching District 9 in English). Hence my next “planes�? ended very voiced—not that anyone heard it over the noise of all that disaster-ing, catastrophe-ing and apocalypse-ing around us.
Afterwards I wondered which pronunciation had been more correct.
Yesterday then I added another layer of wondering, when I wondered what happened when a word-final /z/ is followed by a word-initial /s/; this may serve as such an example. On IDEA I learned that sometimes nothing happens and sometimes the /z/ becomes devoiced. I then (after what feels like a few months) re-watched Brooke’s video (Thanks, Brooke!) and my wonder culminated in some frantic googling which unearthed that paper that finally Oedipused the mystery for me. :-)
Oh, and about the r-sounds issue on pirates, those little articulatory gems seems to be especially controversial: I don’t think the English ɹ is especially hard to pronounce for Germans, it’s just not in our inventory, but the German �? (the one I use) as well as its voiceless counterpart x (or χ) seem to be pretty tricky (as in “Bach�?, the composer, also the German word for “brook�?. ^^)
Even some Germans have problems pronouncing the southern German ʀ—a trill—and especially hard is r—also a trill—which is heard in some older RP-ish (I think) varieties of British English (Stephen Fry uses it and of course Noel Coward—a lot) and which is the rhotic consonant in Spanish and surely also some other languages. I can’t pronounce it yet, but I think, after much training, I at least have the tongue movement down—more or less.
And then there is also the alveolar tap, ɾ, as in General American “city�? (ˈsɪɾi) which is also sometimes used as rhotic sound by people like Stephen Fry and Noel Coward. It sounds like one tap/flap of the alveolar trill r, I think.
Hmm, this looks long. Good thing my browser didn’t crash. ^^
September 17, 2009