Even here, though, the terminology can vary somewhat: Korean stops are usually described as "lenis", "fortis", and "aspirated", for example, rather than "voiced" and "voiceless" (since the VOT on the "voiced" stops tends not to be especially negative).Īs Draconis says, the three phonations described in the question (aspirated, voiceless unaspirated aka tenuis, & voiced) are distinguished primarily by voice onset time (VOT), i.e. What's rarer is a three-way distinction in VOT, as found in, say, Ancient Greek, or some varieties of Korean. Some people prefer to call the more-aspirated series "fortis" and the less-aspirated series "lenis" as a more neutral way to discuss these issues we can then say Spanish, English, and Mandarin all have a two-way fortis/lenis distinction in their stops. Does that mean English has an "aspiration" distinction or a "voicing" distinction? It really comes down to the phonologist doing the analysis. English "voiced" stops often correspond to Spanish "tenuis" stops, having VOT values close to zero-but at the same time they're more voiced than their Mandarin equivalents. The decision, then, to call this a "voicing" or an "aspiration" distinction is somewhat arbitrary. And in Mandarin, it's even farther toward the aspirated end, separating small positive values from large ones. In English, it's more on the aspirated end, separating close-to-zero values from positive values. In Spanish, the dividing line is farther to the voiced end of the spectrum, separating negative values from close-to-zero values. But they all draw the dividing line in different places. For example, Spanish, English, and Mandarin all have this two-way distinction. It's quite common for languages to have a two-way distinction in VOT. The more negative the VOT, the more voiced the stop the more positive the VOT, the more aspirated. not aspirated or voiced), and "voiced" stops are primarily distinguished by voice onset time, the time between the release of the stop and the start of voicing. Phonetically, "aspirated", "tenuis" (i.e.
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