unaspirated t and unreleased t, flap t and lateral t

Question

I have trouble distinguishing these 't's.  I wonder if unaspirated t and unreleased t sound the same. Some sites say t in 'little' is flap and others say it is 'lateral.' Thank you.

Fivejedjon · Accepted Answer

In BrE, the /t/ in top is aspirated, released with a slight puff of air, but the /t/ in stop is not. If you hold a piece of tissue paper in front of your mouth as you say these words, you will see that it is blown far more when you say top than when you say stop.

Word-final /t/ is often not released at all unless the following word begins with a vowel..

When /t/ is followed by /l/, as in bottle, little, the /t/ is released laterally, i.e., over the sides of the tongue.

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousSome sites say t in 'little' is flap and others say it is 'lateral.'

It seems to start as a flap, but it gets nowhere because of the lateral release needed for the "l", so it has aspects of both, but I would not call it a true flap sound in any case.

Anonymous I wonder if unaspirated t and unreleased t sound the same.

Absolutely not. They are different. Often people use unaspirated "t" (on the rare occasions where it is used at all) for a syllable-initial "t" after "n", as in "winter" or "mountain". Unreleased "t" is usually utterance-final, as in "He has it" or "What has he got?" You also hear unreleased "t" syllable-final and word-internal, as in "atlas".

The former is much more easily recognizable as a "t" sound, a sort of "soft t"; the latter sounds more like a glottal stop, which is like stopping sound production completely for a brief second. Some speakers actually use the glottal stop itself where others use the unreleased "t".

(American English)

CJ

unaspirated t and unreleased t, flap t and lateral t

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