Voice Voiced plosives are pronounced with vibration of the
vocal cords,
voiceless plosives without. Plosives are commonly voiceless, and many languages, such as
Mandarin Chinese and
Hawaiian, have only voiceless plosives. Others, such as most
Australian languages, are indeterminate: plosives may vary between voiced and voiceless without distinction, some of them like
Yanyuwa and
Yidiny have only voiced plosives.
Aspiration In
aspirated plosives, the
vocal cords (vocal folds) are abducted at the time of release. In a prevocalic aspirated plosive (a plosive followed by a vowel or sonorant), the time when the vocal cords begin to vibrate will be delayed until the vocal folds come together enough for voicing to begin, and will usually start with breathy voicing. The duration between the release of the plosive and the voice onset is called the
voice onset time (VOT) or the
aspiration interval. Highly aspirated plosives have a long period of aspiration, so that there is a long period of voiceless airflow (a phonetic ) before the onset of the vowel. In
tenuis plosives, the vocal cords come together for voicing immediately following the release, and there is little or no aspiration (a voice onset time close to zero). In English, there may be a brief segment of breathy voice that identifies the plosive as voiceless and not voiced. In voiced plosives, the vocal folds are set for voice before the release, and often vibrate during the entire hold, and in English, the voicing after release is not breathy. A plosive is called "fully voiced" if it is voiced during the entire occlusion. In English, however, initial voiced plosives like or may have no voicing during the period of occlusion, or the voicing may start shortly before the release and continue after release, and word-final plosives tend to be fully devoiced: In most dialects of English, the final /b/, /d/ and /g/ in words like
rib,
mad and
dog are fully devoiced. Initial voiceless plosives, like the
p in
pie, are aspirated, with a palpable puff of air upon release, whereas a plosive after an
s, as in
spy, is
tenuis (unaspirated). When spoken near a candle flame, the flame will flicker more after the words
par, tar, and
car are articulated, compared with
spar, star, and
scar. In the common pronunciation of
papa, the initial
p is aspirated whereas the medial
p is not.
Length In a
geminate or
long consonant, the occlusion lasts longer than in simple consonants. In languages where plosives are only distinguished by length (e.g., Arabic, Ilwana, Icelandic), the long plosives may be held up to three times as long as the short plosives.
Italian is well known for its geminate plosives, as the double
t in the name
Vittoria takes just as long to say as the
ct does in English
Victoria.
Japanese also prominently features geminate consonants, such as in the minimal pair 来た
kita 'came' and 切った
kitta 'cut'.
Estonian is unusual for contrasting three lengths, as in the minimal triplet
kabi 'hoof',
kapi 'wardrobe [gen. sg.]', and
kappi 'wardrobe [ill. sg.]'. There are many languages where the features voice, aspiration, and length reinforce each other, and in such cases it may be hard to determine which of these features predominates. In such cases, the terms
fortis is sometimes used for aspiration or gemination, whereas
lenis is used for single, tenuous, or voiced plosives. However, the terms
fortis and
lenis are poorly defined, and their meanings vary from source to source.
Nasalization Simple
nasals are differentiated from plosives only by a lowered
velum that allows the air to escape through the nose during the occlusion. Nasals are acoustically
sonorants, as they have a non-turbulent airflow and are nearly always voiced, but they are articulatorily
obstruents, as there is complete blockage of the oral cavity. The term
occlusive may be used as a cover term for both nasals and plosives. A
prenasalized stop starts out with a lowered velum that raises during the occlusion. The closest examples in English are consonant clusters such as the [nd] in
candy, but many languages have prenasalized stops that function phonologically as single consonants.
Swahili is well known for having words beginning with prenasalized stops, as in
ndege 'bird', and in many languages of the South Pacific, such as
Fijian, these are even spelled with single letters:
b [mb],
d [nd]. A
postnasalized plosive begins with a raised velum that lowers during the occlusion. This causes an audible nasal
release, as in English
sudden. This could also be compared to the /dn/ cluster found in
Russian and other Slavic languages, which can be seen in the name of the
Dnieper River. The terms
prenasalization and
postnasalization are normally used only in languages where these sounds are phonemic: that is, not analyzed into sequences of plosive plus nasal.
Airstream mechanism Stops may be made with more than one
airstream mechanism. The normal mechanism is
pulmonic egressive, that is, with air flowing outward from the lungs. All spoken languages have pulmonic stops. Some languages have stops made with other mechanisms as well:
ejective stops (
glottalic egressive),
implosive stops (
glottalic ingressive), or
click consonants (
lingual ingressive).
Tenseness A
fortis plosive is produced with more muscular tension than a
lenis plosive. However, this is difficult to measure, and there is usually debate over the actual mechanism of alleged fortis or lenis consonants. There are a series of plosives in the
Korean language, sometimes written with the IPA symbol for ejectives, which are produced using "
stiff voice", meaning there is increased contraction of the glottis than for normal production of voiceless plosives. The indirect evidence for stiff voice is in the following vowels, which have a higher fundamental frequency than those following other plosives. The higher frequency is explained as a result of the glottis being tense. Other such
phonation types include
breathy voice, or murmur;
slack voice; and
creaky voice. ==Transcription==