D, b, aspirated?

Question

Hi,In English, are /d/ and /b/ aspirated just like /t/, /k/, and /p/?Are there other sounds that are aspirated? Thanks.Sarcandra

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

No, /d/ and /b/ are voiced or unaspirated sounds.

Aspirates: /t/, /k/, /p/, /s/, /sh/, /f/, /h/, /ch/, /th/ (as in 'thick').

I think that's all of them.

CalifJim · Answer

sarcandraIn English, are /d/ and /b/ aspirated just like /t/, /k/, and /p/?

No. /b/, /d/, and /g/ are voiced. Voiced sounds cannot be aspirated. Only unvoiced plosives (which are /p/, /t/, and /k/ in English) can be aspirated (or not). These three consonants are aspirated when word initial or stressed syllable initial (in American English, anyway); otherwise, not. For example, in words like 'spot', 'stool', and 'skin', the /p/, /t/, and /k/ are not aspirated, though they are aspirated in 'pot', 'tool', and 'kin'. The difference between the aspirated and unaspirated varities of these consonants is most easily heard with the /t/.

CJ

Mister Micawber · Answer

Have I got 'voiced' and 'aspirated' confused, CJ? I thought they were synonymous.

CalifJim · Answer

Mister MicawberHave I got 'voiced' and 'aspirated' confused, CJ?

Not exactly. I'm not sure, but it looks like maybe you've got "unvoiced" and "aspirated" confused. Sounds like /f/ and /s/ are unvoiced fricatives, not unvoiced plosives (also called 'stops'), and fricatives don't come in two flavors (aspirated, unaspirated) like unvoiced plosives do. The fricatives already depend on continuous air flow for their production, so whether there's a puff of air (i.e., aspiration) upon the initiation of the fricative sound is pretty much immaterial.

Nothing voiced can be aspirated, although you'll find some theorizing claiming it's possible (with regard to Hindi and Sanskrit). I skip over those details (understandably, I think) when applying the principles for English students.

In English we have nine plosives (stops) if you consider the parameter of aspiration (IPA symbol ^h),

Voiced* Unvoiced unaspirated Unvoiced aspirated

/b/ /p/ /p^h/

/d/ /t/ /t^h/

/g/ /k/ /k^h/ *and necessarily unaspirated.

We native speakers don't pay much attention to aspiration because it never changes the meaning of a word if we aspirate where others don't or if we don't aspirate where others do. The difference between aspirated and unaspirated can be the difference between two different words in other languages, however, which is why we sometimes get questions about it in English.

CJ

Mister Micawber · Answer

Thanks, CJ.  (Yes, I meant to write 'unvoiced', not 'voiced'.) Yes, I have the 2 terms confused. I was thinking that the  /f/–/v/ and /s/–/z/ pairs were 'aspirated-unaspirated'.  Back to the chapter on phonetics for me!

D, b, aspirated?

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