Transcript T - voicing in American English - uni

T - voicing
in American English
A comparison of
initial d and voiced t
What is t - voicing?




striking characteristic of American pronunciation
occurs in words like water
, better, waiting, 49ers quarterback
to non-American and English people it sounds like a /d/ rather than a /t/
phonetically it is not a plosive
 Two different manners of articulation
 alveolar tap (e.g. water, better)
 retroflex flap (e.g. dirty, party)
1 Alveolar tap 
Occurs:
 inter-vocalically in a word (pretty , water
)
 word-finally before a vowel (put it , light up
 )
 foot-internally after the nasal  as a nasalized tap
 (winter  , twenty )
 other realizations in AmEng:
 total extinction 
 “British style” 
2 retroflex flap 
 is used before a vowel when the
preceding consonant is the
approximant /r/
 party 
 forty 
The Recordings
 female speakers from Illinois and Iowa
 Northern accents
 21 and 24 years old
 reading coherent text
 cassette tape
computer
 cut out single words
 just “Iowa file” for presentation
A tap/flap has a different acoustic
quality than a , therefore it is an
oversimplification to call it .
What are the differences in quality?
 analysis in praat
 Used words:
 dinner 
 pottery 
 simplicity 
 49ers quarterback 
  
Initial  - dinner 
 release is marked by high
intensity of higher formants
 fifth formant at 4500-4900 Hz
has highest intensity
 the lower formants are
comparatively weak
Voiced tap  - pottery

 in all frequency ranges
relatively low intensity
 highest intensity in first
formant
 voice bar at ~ 440 HZ
 higher formants hardly visible
Voiced tap  - simplicity

 voice bar at ~ 330 HZ
 4th and 5th formant clearly
visible, as intense as 1st
formant
 release
 tap quality is similar to quality
of initial 
similar contexts?
Voiced retroflex flap  - forty
 
 voice bar at ~ 550 Hz
 higher formants are less
intense (no release)
 very intense 2nd and 3rd
formant
 influence of preceding /r/ ?
 difference between tap and flap
• A tap/flap is not a 
Initial d
tap
flap
yes
no (exception
simplicity)
no
1st formant
(voice bar)
In comparison to
higher formants
low intensity
yes
yes
2nd and 3rd
formant
nothing striking
nothing striking
Comparatively
intense
Release (higher
formants)