Pronunciation of verbs (3rd person singular) ending in -s

[Mad-ox]

Hello everybody,

I am looking for pronunciation rules regarding the -s ending of the verbs in the 3rd person singular: for example: sees, listens, asks, lives, sleeps, etc I know that there are three ways of pronunciation:
It can be pronunced:

.........................................................
[z].........................................................
[iz] for example: watches, washes.

So, when do we pronunce and when [z]? What is the rule?

Thank you in advance
Madox

 

[5jj]

/s/ after unvoiced consonants except /s, ʃ, ʧ/: /kIks, pʊts, kɒfs/

/z/ after voiced consonants except /z,ʒ, ʤ/, vowels and diphthongs: /hʌgz, siːz, leIz/

/Iz/(or/əz/) after /s, z, ʃ, ʒ, ʧ/ and /ʤ/: /bɒksIz, bʌzIz, wɒIIz ruːʒIz, kæʧIz, ʤʌʤIz/

 

[5jj]

For those who can't read IPA:

/s/ (as in hiss) after unvoiced consonants: kicks, puts, coughs

/z/ (as in buzz) after voiced consonants: hugs, sees, lays

but

/Iz/(or/əz/) after sibilants (the underlined sounds in: sad, zoo, ship, chip, judge, measure): boxes, buzzes, washes, rouges, catches, judges.

 

[birdeen's call]

/z/ after voiced consonants except /z,ʒ, ʤ/, vowels and diphthongs: /hʌgz, siːz, leIz/

But that leaves out "listens" and all consonantal sonorants... Is there a rule here? I don't think we have a /z/ in "listens" or in "pills".

 

[5jj]

But that leaves out "listens" and all consonantal sonorants... Is there a rule here? I don't think we have a /z/ in "listens" or in "pills".

I do, and so do John Wells in his Longman Pronunciation Dictionary and Peter Roach et al in their Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary.

What do you think we have?

 

[birdeen's call]

Having pronounced "pills" several times, I see that "pill[z]" is good, but "pill" doesn't sound wrong to me either. "Listen[z]" sounds strange to me. I say "listen".

I think these samples have a voiceless :
Pronunciation of pills - how to pronounce pills correctly.
Pronunciation of listens - how to pronounce listens correctly.

 

[5jj]

I think these samples have a voiceless :
Pronunciation of pills - how to pronounce pills correctly.
Pronunciation of listens - how to pronounce listens correctly.

The speaker there certainly seems to close with /s/, but I think he starts with /z/. The devoicing at the end may be just because the word is spoken in isolation.

Try saying:
Ls (as in pill has two Ls) and else, walls/waltz.
pens/pence, wins/wince, darns/dance

Are they the same for you?

 

[birdeen's call]

You're right, they're not the same. But I'm not sure what the difference is, since "pills" and "zeal" have different sounds in my pronunciation too. Maybe the voicing in "pills" is very weak simply?

 

[5jj]

Maybe the voicing in "pills" is very weak simply?

I think it depends on the sound following.

In: I take six pills in the morning, my /z/ is fully voiced, though shorter than the sound in zeal;
in I take six pills to stop the pain, my /z/ is at least partly devoiced.

I think that my /z/ is fully voiced before all voiced consonants, but I'd need a spectogram to be sure.

 

[birdeen's call]

Thanks! This is a very interesting discovery to me. I was always told that English didn't have the feature of devoicing voiced consonants word-finally (which is present in Polish - in isolated words). But it seems it happens in some cases. In Polish, we also do not devoice our consonants when a vowel follows.

 

[5jj]

Thanks! This is a very interesting discovery to me. I was always told that English didn't have the feature of devoicing voiced consonants word-finally (which is present in Polish - in isolated words). But it seems it happens in some cases. In Polish, we also do not devoice our consonants when a vowel follows.

Phoneticians will tell us that there are a lot more variations in allophones than most of us, including teachers, are aware of. The very slight differences are not really important (if they were, we'd be more aware of them), though they explain in part why non-native accents in English are so fiendishly difficult to eradicate.

Each individual 'mispronunciation' cannot be detected by most native speakers, but the cumulative effect makes the speech of all but a gifted few advanced learners of English slightly 'off'.

 

[BobK]

I think it depends on the sound following.

In: I take six pills in the morning, my /z/ is fully voiced, though shorter than the sound in zeal;
in I take six pills to stop the pain, my /z/ is at least partly devoiced.

I think that my /z/ is fully voiced before all voiced consonants, but I'd need a spectogram to be sure.

:up: In the first, the /s/* is intervocalic**, and so is realized as [z]***. In the second, the /s/ retains its voicelessness**** because of the following unvoiced /t/.

(To extend to a third case, in 'These pills do help' the /s/* is realized as [z]. This is the case you speculate about in your last sentence - you're not alone in this voicing!)

b

PS Lots of slips; I've left them for the record, but here are the corrections:
* It's /z/
** pre of course, not inter-.*****
*** Because it was /z/ in the first place, nothing surprising happens here. It makes a [z] sound.
**** Because of the first correction, it doesn't have any voicelessness to retain.

So many slips Sorry if I've misled you BC!

PSS *****Except in some dialects, where the /l/ is vocalized - for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary_English#Features . Then it is intervocalic.