Printable View
Hello everyone.
A fortis (unvoiced) consonant appears after a short vowel and a lenis (voiced) consonant appears after a long vowel.
In fact, the "a" sound in rag and rack is different. Watch the video: youtube.com/watch?v=o_GHV6RTy9c
So, why not change the vowel rather than the consonant?
I don't understand the question. What happens is what happens. No one thinks 'I know, I'll change the vowel length'; if they did, it wouldn't be what we call 'language'.
b
PS Read up about the difference between an Allophone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and Phoneme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 'Rag' and 'rack' both have the /æ/ phoneme though the allophones are distinct; so your /ʤʌʤ/ vs /ʤa:ʤ/ is not good. You need to compare words in which the phoneme remains the same - e.g. lunch/lunge (/lʌnʧ/ vs /lʌnʤ/)*.
b
PS * I tried to think of a more direct comparison, using+ /ʌʧ/ vs + /ʌʤ/ - but couldn't think of one. But several other short vowels would work:
ledge vs lech (informal abrreviation of 'lecher'; it's even used as a verb, meaning 'behave like a lecher)
badge vs batch
pitch 'n (as in the foreshortened golf game '"pitch 'n' putt") vs pigeon
... (plenty of others, I'm sure)
BobK, thank you for your explanation.
The point is I don´t understand why the allophone of the last /ʤ/ is always [ʧ]. If the vowel becomes longer, why do you change that sound?
Well, I hear [ʧ] at least.
Sorry, I´m just learning :)
So, why not change the vowel rather than the consonant?
Because while a short and a long /ae/ as in 'bat' and 'bad' are allophones, /ʌ/ and /ɑ:/ are not. 'muck' /mʌk/ and 'mark' /mɑ:k/ are different words, as are /bʌd/ and /bɑːd/; /kʌnt/ and /kɑːnt/.
It's not a process that a native speaker is conscious of, or that a student needs to be conscious of.Quote:
Originally Posted by NaVaS
b
PS There's some interesting stuff in this thread: http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/pr...tml#post719603 (about who hears what!).