Talk:Voice onset time

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Contents 1 Definition 2 aspiration 3 Any References for VOT in Prenasalized Stops? 4 Prenasalized != prevoiced, implosive != stronger voicing

[edit] Definition

Hi ThirdParty,

The definition you've used for VOT is correct, except for the vowel part. (Vowels are irrelevant for the VOT of a voiced consonant, though they make it easier to detect the degree of aspiration.) With a voiced stop, voicing begins during the occlusion, not upon release. (Although you were more accurate than me in saying that anything within about 15ms counts as 'at release'.) Fully voiced means VOT coincides with onset; partially voiced means a significant negative VOT that does not completely cover the stop (like English voiced stops in initial position.) What you've described as voiceless stops are voiceless, true, but also aspirated - a noticeable positive VOT is the definition of aspiration. Your 'prevoiced' stops are actually prenasalized. If you take [mb] to be a single consonant, as it is in many languages, then 'prevoiced' would mean a VOT before the onset of the nasal. kwami 18:11, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)

Hi kwami, thanks for the corrections. But I'm still puzzled by your definition of aspiration. First, given your definition, how do aspirated voiced consonants (Sanskrit is an example) work? It seems like they would have to have both positive and negative VOT. Second, I don't have a linguistics textbook handy, but I believe the page on aspiration is correct: aspiration is defined as a burst of air, which, it seems to me, would be independent of when the vocal cords start vibrating. Third, I can easily produce an aspirated unvoiced consonant without ever voicing at all (just pronounce "pʰ" with no vowel after it); I have trouble believing that the VOT is even defined for such a speech act. I'll leave your revision up, but I'm going to stick a Disputed tag on the article; feel free to remove it if you can explain these three puzzles. -- ThirdParty 02:32, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

You're right. VOT is just a practical way of measuring aspiration, not a definition of it. Eastern Armenian contrasts final aspirated and unaspirated stops, for example, and languages like Bella Coola make consonant sequences like ptkts audible by aspirating the stops. I'll take a look at the article.

However, "voiced aspirates" aren't the same thing, and are irrelevant for the argument here. I think people might call them 'murmured' or 'breathy voice' precisely to avoid confusion with (voiceless) aspiration and VOT.

Anyway, I'll try cleaning up this and the aspiration article. kwami 06:08, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah, good, that makes sense. I'd still like to see a reference on VOT being a practical way of measuring aspiration, though. In which languages does it work, and what percentage of the time? -- ThirdParty 13:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] aspiration

The aspiration section says: In Navajo, for example, which is strongly aspirated, aspiration lasts about twice as long as it does in English. Other languages have 'weaker' aspiration than English.

Seems to me it says English has the second-most-strongly aspirated stops. I doubt that's true, but don't know. Can anyone confirm/refute and edit as necessary?

— Felix the Cassowary 08:50, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

These are just examples. Irish also has stronger aspiration than English, but I didn't include it because I don't know how it compares to Navajo. kwami 19:29, 2005 August 29 (UTC)

Thanks, I've clarified the article. — Felix the Cassowary 01:37, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Check out any of the UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics. VOT is probably the standard way of measuring aspiration. Of course, measuring airflow would be more accurate, but that involves lugging bulky equipment along, strapping a mask over the speaker, and thus interfering with normal speech. Also, you can't use it for languages you don't have access to, or for extinct languages. VOT, on the other hand, is readily apparent in the spectrogram as long as you take a little care to make a clean recording. (You might object that you could just look for the aspiration itself, but that's often difficult to distinguish from affrication; also, the visible potion of the aspiration often peters out part way through unless you have a very high quality recording.) You can of course hear aspiration word finally, but it's difficult to measure. But in any reasonable stretch of speech, you will be able to find enough cases of VOT to get a statistical sample.

As for which languages, I've seen it for at least English, Korean, Navajo, and Hadza. Ladefoged in SOWL says,

The extensive work of Lisker and Abramson (1964, 1967) has shown that VOT is a highly effective measure for differentiating stops with different laryngeal actions in a wide variety of languages.

kwami 20:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Any References for VOT in Prenasalized Stops?

A greeting to all.

I find is interesting to consider also the prenasalized stops like a step in the continuun of the VOT. But this is not part of the ŏpīnĭō cŏmmūnĭs on the VOT. Unfortunately, Cho–Ladefoged [1997] does not speak of it, and not even Ladefoged–Maddieson [1996]. I would want to deepen the situation of the Japanese dialects and the allophonic/tassophonic alternation of prenasalized and modal voiced stops in Melanesian languages.

Anybody knows some bibliographical reference in purpose? (Anticipated thanks)--Glottografo 00:43, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prenasalized != prevoiced, implosive != stronger voicing

"Such full voicing is not the limit of negative VOT. A voicing duration greater than the length of the plosive may manifests [sic] itself as prenasalization."

The term "prenasalization", when I look for it in phonetics books, is not discussed as part of the voicing continuum, but as a phonetic quality of some stops in some languages. The only discussions of prenasalization as part of the voicing continuum I can find are on Wikipedia itself. Could whoever wrote this paragraph please give more details on his sources? Otherwise I think this part of the discussion should be removed.

A similar issue is present with the later part of the same paragraph. Implosives have a different kind of voicing (non-pulmonic), not a different strength of voicing (reading the Wikipedia article on implosives makes this clear, as do most phonetics books). I believe this should also be removed unless the writer can provide a source.

Armchairlinguist 20:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I've removed this because no one has come forward to claim that it is accurate, and give supporting evidence for it. --Armchairlinguist 18:57, 16 August 2006 (UTC)