“Voicing” in English: A Catalogue of Acoustic Features Signaling /b/ Versus /p/ in Trochees

Abstract

The English category sets /b, d, g/ and /p, t, k/ are now usually referred to as voiced and voiceless stops respectively, although it is recognized that membership in these sets is not entirely determined by whether, according to commonly accepted definitions, a given phonetic element is voiced or voiceless; nor need it even be described as a stop. What is true is that if a phonetic element is phonetically a voiced stop then it will be assigned to the /b, d, g/ set, and if it is a voiceless stop it may, but need not be, assigned to /p, t, k/. A context in which the stop members of the two phonological sets may be distinguished simply on the basis of voicing (as narrowly defined with respect to stop consonants) is between vowels, as for example in the pair rabid-rapid. Acoustically, however, as many as 16 pattern properties can be counted that may play a role in determining whether a listener reports hearing one of these words rather than the other. In purely acoustic terms these properties are rather disparate, although most of them show variations that can plausibly be considered to be primarily the diverse effects of a relatively simple difference in the management of the larynx together with the closing and opening of the mouth. This diversity makes it difficult to rationalize a purely acoustic account of the rabid-rapid opposition, — i.e., one that makes no reference to the articulatory mechanisms and maneuvers by which the common linguistic effect of varying these acoustic properties might be explained.