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Kooyeen Posted 19 years ago
Speech & Pronunciation

Unreleased final consonants

Hi,
I read Nona's new post earlier, but... where is it now? I can't see it anymore. It was a post with a link to a website where you could listen to IPA sounds (for British English).
Well, I heard a lot of words pronounced with a clear consonant sound at the end. I thought of posting this:

What are the consonant that are unreleased at the end of a word? (In American English, but Nona's and the other brits' opinions are welcome too of course, lol).

If you say Bob as Bo-buh, bod as bo-duh, bop as bo-puh, and bot as bo-tuh, you will be doing a stereotypical Italian accent. What I notice is that in American English all the final consonants are unreleased, apart form k, which is not aspirated though. The T is unreleased and often with a glottal stop. For M, N, P, ect., not releasing them means not opening the mouth again at the end.
Sometimes final consonants are released, but only very very little, so... Having said that, there's not much difference between:
Bot / Bop
Bod / Bob

The fist pair can be distinguished from the second by the vowel length (longer vowel and on two levels of intonation if the syllable ends with a voiced consonant). But there's not much difference between the words in each pair, is there?

Opinions? Thannk you in advance Emotion: smile
  

Top answer

Kooyeen Hi, I read Nona's new post earlier, but... where is it now? I can't see it anymore.

  • Kooyeen Hi, I read Nona's new post earlier, but...
  • where is it now?
  • I can't see it anymore.
  • It was a post with a link to a website where you could listen to IPA sounds (for British English).
  • You mean this one, Mr K?
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25 Answers
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KooyeenHi,
I read Nona's new post earlier, but... where is it now? I can't see it anymore. It was a post with a link to a website where you could listen to IPA sounds (for British English).


You mean this one, Mr K?
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In BrE, strangely, if you don't release the final B of "Bob", but in fact non-release it excessively, it has a humorous effect.

I'm not quite sure why.

MrP
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If you say Bob as Bo-buh, bod as bo-duh, bop as bo-puh, and bot as bo-tuh, you will be doing a stereotypical Italian accent.
Oh, yes! You got it!

-- What's a bigamist?
-- A lot of fog.
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Mr P - don't you remember the Bob episode of Blackadder? I'm sure it comes from there.
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Yeah Anita, now I've seen where it is! Thx Emotion: smile

CalifJim -- What's a bigamist?
-- A lot of fog.

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Nona The BritMr P - don't you remember the Bob episode of Blackadder? I'm sure it comes from there.
Phew. I was beginning to think I'd imagined it. (And offended every Bob on the forum.)
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Take this site Nona's found. If you listen to "ship" (the fourth symbol), you can hear he final P. It's whispered, it's ok, but I think it's too much for Americans, generally speaking. I can hear the P... many Americans wouldn't release it so much, and I wouldn't hear it, I guess.
Yup. What you say is generally true, but when we purposely make an effort to speak clear
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Ok, thanks.

Frog? Clock has also that vowel. We have that vowel in Italian too. Why do you say it's weird? I think there is that vowel in American English, for those who distinguish "cot" and "caught". I think (I can't check, they don't run on my OS now) my dictionaries pronounced "frog" and "dog" with that vowel, and not with the vowel in "father". I just say something at random, like "
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Glad to make you smile CJ Emotion: smile

There's an ad on TV at the moment where a woman says 'hot' (same vowel sound) and the way she sa
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Frog? Clock has also that vowel. We have that vowel in Italian too. Why do you say it's weird? I think there is that vowel in American English, for those who distinguish "cot" and "caught".
The vowel in frog (and hot and got, too) is indeed a typical feature of British English. I don't think you can find it in American pronunciation. Words which have this vowel will instea

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