Additional "t" sound ???

Question

Is there any rules or logic in the pronunciation of certain words where the sound of "t" appears out of nowhere:

>> Nazi: nA:t.zi
>> Pizza: pIt.z@
>> Mozart: Email Removed:t

However, similar sounding word "Dizzy" has NOT got the "t" sound in it for some reason.

Addition of "t" sound in between the sounds of "n" & "s" (in Pension, Tension, chance, sense, etc.) is a rather intrigued phonetic/pronunciation aspect ALONG with equally interesting is this particular addition of "t" sound scenario.

Is there any official name given to such scenario & when exactly does this sound of additional "t" occur ???
Which are the other similar words having additional "t" sound without the actual "t" letter in the word itself ???

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

The 'ts' sound of ****, Mozart, and pizza is due to the fact that these are foreign words (German and Italian respectively). In these languages, 'z' is pronounced 'ts'.

The 't' in 'pension' etc. is a completely different phenomenon. It's due to the physiology of speech production. The reason is that 'n' requires the flow of breath from the mouth to be stopped ('n' is a nasal sound). On the other hand, 'sh' requires a rush of sound through a restricted space (giving a kind of hissing sound). In making the transition from 'n' to 'sh', all it requires is a bit of poor coordination and the breath is held in a little too long for the 'n'. When it comes out, it gives the 'sh' an explosive start, which sounds like a 't'. In fact, this is not exactly a 't'. It's actually a very strong (plosive) onset to the 'sh' sound which makes 'sh' sound like 'ch'.

You can try it yourself. If you very slowly pronounce 'n' and then naturally glide to an 'sh', you'll find that a slight delay in releasing the sound at the start of 'sh' very naturally results in the production of a 't' (or 'ch').

Aperisic · Answer

AnonymousIs there any rules or logic in the pronunciation of certain words where the sound of "t" appears out of nowhere:

>> ****: nA:t.zi
>> Pizza: pIt.z@
>> Mozart: Email Removed:t

There is no "t". It just looks that way. There are thousand of sounds that exist in other languages which you cannot find in English. But Na{z}i, Mo{z}art... you can:

tzetze fly, tzigane, tzimmes

[tz]e[tz]e fly, [tz]igane, [tz]immes

So there is no "t" - "tz" is just too rare sound in English and it looks that it has 't' in 't+s' or 't+z' but it doesn't. They merge in one clear crisp sound. (In 'tz' there is 't' as much as in 'sh' you have 's'.)EndFragment>
EndFragment>So read **** as Na[tz]i, and Mozart as Mo[tz]art. (No 't', please, there is no 't' in 'tzigane' as well.)

CalifJim · Answer

read **** as Na[tz]i, and Mozart as Mo[tz]art. (No 't', please, ... )

I take it you can hear a difference between Natzi, Na[tz]i, Natsi, and Na[ts]i.

Your symbology seems to be of your own invention. The IPA is /'natsi/.

CJ

Aperisic · Answer

CalifJim
read **** as Na[tz]i, and Mozart as Mo[tz]art. (No 't', please, ... )
I take it you can hear a difference between Natzi, Na[tz]i, Natsi, and Na[ts]i.

Your symbology seems to be of your own invention. The IPA is /'natsi/.

CJ

Nop. I did not use any particular symbology and I do not make difference between t+s and t+z. I'll explain.

With [tz] I suggested that you should read **** as Na[tz]i where the sound tz is the same sound as in tzigany - [tz]igany. Nothing else.

In one place, where I mentioned 'ts', it suggests that that missing crisp sound in Mozart or **** is composed of t+s. In the same place I wrote t+z and that suggests that that crisp sound is composed of merged sound of t+z (pronounced fast together). I did not use symbology of any kind. This crisp sound is ether composed of t+s or t+z together, but that is really too close to make difference. I can send you a .wav file of the sound and that would make clear what that sound really is.

Maybe I shouldn't use []. Sorry if that made a confusion.

Another word where you have the same sound is

mozzarella - mozzarella

Aperisic · Answer

Well, well, my friend. I just checked. You are right. In the transcriptions that I have found and could remember they transcribe, for example, Tzigane as [tsij'gan], which means that the standard English transcription system have no special sign for tz in Tzigane (and other words which I have mentioned above). They should have.

That sound in ****, Mozart, tzigane, mozzarella is a composed sound. It is not simply either ts (t+s) or tz (t+z) (unless we adopt as in sh that it is not s+h either, but a new sound). I guess this mozzarella sound is too rare to require a new symbol. But it does not mean that you can pronounce **** as n.a.t.z.i. You can't. It is n.a.#.i where # stands for a consonant that does not exist in English. (All words mentioned here with that new sound are borrowed - Italian, French, German).

To complete, this in Nazi, Mozart, tzigany, mozzarella all underlined sounds are not diphthongs in the sense in which house [hause] is. It is the same combining of sounds as in the [the] - it is a new sound.

So I agree, this sound is not cleared out regarding its pronunciation. However, in Microsoft Encarta dictionary tools all words mentioned are pronounced exactly with the sound I am trying to describe here. (Only pronounced, the transcription is vague. In the list of diphthongs and their description, there is no room for tz or ts, but they are pronounced clearly different.)

What I want to say is that if you take any English dictionary or thesaurus or... for the first time and look for the word like mozzarella and strictly follow the instructions of transcription, you would pronounce it at best as m.o.t.z.a.r.e.l.a or m.o.t.s.a.r.e.l.a, there is no suggestion whatsoever that you have m.o.#.a.r.e.l.a instead. But, you do.

Philip · Answer

AnonymousThe 't' in 'pension' etc. is a completely different phenomenon. It's due to the physiology of speech production. The reason is that 'n' requires the flow of breath from the mouth to be stopped ('n' is a nasal sound). On the other hand, 'sh' requires a rush of sound through a restricted space (giving a kind of hissing sound). In making the transition from 'n' to 'sh', all it requires is a bit of poor coordination and the breath is held in a little too long for the 'n'. When it comes out, it gives the 'sh' an explosive start, which sounds like a 't'. In fact, this is not exactly a 't'. It's actually a very strong (plosive) onset to the 'sh' sound which makes 'sh' sound like 'ch'.

The complete linguistic term is "voiceless stop insertion".

I always like the story of Snow White waiting for the photographs from the film she had taken to be developed. They didn't come, day after day; finally she sang the song "Some Day My Prints Will Come".

CalifJim · Answer

What I want to say is that if you take any English dictionary or thesaurus or... for the first time and look for the word like mozzarella and strictly follow the instructions of transcription, you would pronounce it at best as m.o.t.z.a.r.e.l.a or m.o.t.s.a.r.e.l.a, there is no suggestion whatsoever that you have m.o.#.a.r.e.l.a instead. But, you do.

I understand what you are saying, but I can't agree with it.

English does not have the phoneme #. (That is, there are no minimal pairs involving #.) But # is composed of the phones t and s whether it's symbolized as ts or as #. The "ts" (or #) is to "t" and "s" as the "ch" is to "t" and "sh". In either case the two together form what is called an affricate (plosive plus fricative). "ch" and "j" are affricates which are phonemic in English; "ts" and "dz" are affricates which are not phonemic in English. But whether or not they are phonemic, they are composed of two phones.

The sound of # is the final sound in cats. We could spell it ca# if we had the letter # in English. It makes no sense to me to say that the zz in mozzarella is transcribed into English dictionaries as ts when it's really #instead. That's like saying that it is wrong to say someone has half a dozen books when they "really" have six!

Languages which have a special symbol for "ts" most likely have minimal pairs involving it. "ts" is phonemic in those languages. But the phones that compose it are still "t" and "s".

By the way, in the entire International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) there is no symbol for "ts", "dz", "ch" or "j". Each of these requires two IPA symbols.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

CalifJim
What I want to say is that if you take any English dictionary or thesaurus or... for the first time and look for the word like mozzarella and strictly follow the instructions of transcription, you would pronounce it at best as m.o.t.z.a.r.e.l.a or m.o.t.s.a.r.e.l.a, there is no suggestion whatsoever that you have m.o.#.a.r.e.l.a instead. But, you do.
I understand what you are saying, but I can't agree with it.

Well, this way we can speak forever. 'ts' (or #) is only one sound. There is no 't' that you can hear in it. In 'cats' it is composed from 't' and 's', but in 'mozzarella' it is not.

Yet 'ts', I agree, is well chosen notation for it (for some people in this world).

Do you hear s in 'sh'?

Mozart has no composed sound of t+s inside. z in Mozart is a German sound on its own.

**** could look as having a composed sound of t+s because the core word is national, but that would only explain better the orthography. Actually, ts or # is in German so called "hard z". There is no additional t in **** (what you have asked), except that the standard notation gives z in Nazi as 'ts'.

I agree that in mozzarella the zz (or z in Mozart) sounds close to ts in cats, but it is not of the same origin as ts in cats. Sorry, but you can't use English as a reference in these cases.

Nevertheless, it was the easiest way to mark the pronunciation of Mozart as [Motsart], I agree. Still, you can't use this to search for t in Mozart. There is no 't'.

If it looks that in cats, there is t below ts (which seems obvious because cats is cat+s), in Nazi or Mozart or mozzarella, neither z nor zz was ever composed of t and s. z is just the harden sound of z (here for z I think about z as in zero). (However this hard z is close enough to ts in cats that one can suggest its real sound using 'ts' in transcription - Mozart as [Motsart].)

But I'll stop here. If now it is not clear what I want to say, it'll never be.

CalifJim · Answer

but it is not of the same origin as ts in cats.

I am not familiar with any methodology or system of analysis in which the origin of a word affects its phonetic transcription, i.e., affects the way it is heard by the human ear.
You are right that it is not clear to me what you want to say. In particular it is unclear what you intend to mean by the expression "is one sound". You appear to be saying that "ts" is two sounds in "cats", but one sound in "mozzarella". This, too, stems from your unorthodox idea that what a sound is depends on its linguistic origin.

I, too, will stop here.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

CalifJimYou appear to be saying that "ts" is two sounds in "cats", but one sound in "mozzarella". This, too, stems from your unorthodox idea that what a sound is depends on its linguistic origin.

I thought to stop but there you are. You said it:

Yes Yes Yes

"ts" might be understood as two sounds in "cats", but it is definitely one sound in "mozzarella".

"what a sound is depends on its linguistic origin" or at least we can't use 'ts' from ca'ts' to explain or discuss zz in mozzarella

It is common in English, for example, for those who speak French to pronounce French words as the French do or, if they don't speak French, to find similar pronunciation. Then why not in Italian too. Since that is permissible, zz in mozzarella could sound as ts in cats, but then to answer your question why there is t in Mozart I would have to say this:

In original German word Mozart there is no t, since z in Mozart is a sound which origin is related to sound z (that z as in English zero). However, the closest sound in English for z in Mozart is 'ts' (as ts in cats). Since we can understand that ts in cats is composed of t+s, because cats is cat+s, then we could say that there is t in Mozart as well. But, that t is there only because we've replaced the original z in Mozart, which is the sound of hard German z, with softer 'ts' (as ts in cats). There is no other source of t in Mozart but that one.

Sound similar to 'ts' in cats exists in (European languages) German, Italian, Serbian, Irish... on its own and it is definitely pronounced different from 'ts' in ca'ts', trust me on that. They are all close to 'ts' in English, but different. In English there is no separate sound of 'ts', it is either composed (as ts in cats) or the word is borrowed as 'mozzarella'.

In German z in Mozart is more close to combination of th in the and z as in zero. It is hard sound. In Italian it is a light sound, it sounds like combination of t+s+z. In Serbian it is somewhere between, as in Irish... In all these languages, though there are a few exceptional words, that sound, similar to 'ts' in cats, is not t+s in origin!

Please, it is very easy to check all what I have said. There are many Web sites with all these languages.

Actually I tried to find the origin of sound 'ts' is some of these languages and I have to say that it is not one origin at all, there is the Latin 'c', there is a soften 't' before 'i'... But I won't write PhD on this

)

Now, I am really off.

Additional "t" sound ???

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