T - voicingT - voicing in American Englishin 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 oldreading coherent text cassette tape computercut out single wordsjust “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

Release (higherformants)

yes no (exceptionsimplicity)

no

1st formant(voice bar)

In comparison tohigher formants

low intensity

yes yes

2nd and 3rd

formantnothing striking nothing striking Comparatively

intense