Why "judge" /dʒʌdʒ/ becomes /dʒʌtʃ/ not /dʒɑːdʒ/? /

[NaVaS]

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?

[BobK]

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

[BobK]

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 <consonant> + /ʌʧ/ vs <consonant> + /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)

[NaVaS]

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 :)

[Raymott]

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/.

[BobK]

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 :)

It's not a process that a native speaker is conscious of, or that a student needs to be conscious of.

b

PS There's some interesting stuff in this thread: http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/pr...tml#post719603 (about who hears what!).