Degrees of Voicing
| Voice-onset time |
|---|
| + Aspirated |
| 0 Tenuis |
| − Voiced |
There are two variables to degrees of voicing: intensity (discussed under phonation), and duration (discussed under voice onset time). When a sound is described as "half voiced" or "partially voiced", it is not always clear whether that means that the voicing is weak (low intensity), or if the voicing only occurs during part of the sound (short duration). In the case of English, it is the latter.
Juǀʼhoansi and some of the neighboring languages are typologically unusual in having contrastive partially voiced consonants: They have aspirate and ejective consonants, which are normally incompatible with voicing, in voiceless and voiced pairs. These consonants start out voiced, but become voiceless partway through, allow normal aspiration or ejection. They are and, plus a similar series of clicks.
Read more about this topic: Voice (phonetics)
Famous quotes containing the words degrees of and/or degrees:
“Always the laws of light are the same, but the modes and degrees of seeing vary.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“How have I been able to live so long outside Nature without identifying myself with it? Everything lives, moves, everything corresponds; the magnetic rays, emanating either from myself or from others, cross the limitless chain of created things unimpeded; it is a transparent network that covers the world, and its slender threads communicate themselves by degrees to the planets and stars. Captive now upon earth, I commune with the chorus of the stars who share in my joys and sorrows.”
—Gérard De Nerval (1808–1855)