/s/ /z/ /iz/

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Belly T

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Could you give me the rule of pronouncing /s/ /z/ or /iz/ at the bold:
ex: dresses, plays, sandwhiches, witches, asks....:-D
 

BobK

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Could you give me the rule of pronouncing /s/ /z/ or /iz/ at the bold:
ex: dresses, plays, sandw[h]iches, witches, asks....:-D

Here's a first approximation:

if a plural (noun) or verb ending (/s/) follows a fricative or an affricate, use /ız/:
dress => /dresız/ ; witch => /wıʧız/; wedge => /weʤız, etc.

if a plural (noun) or verb ending (/s/) follows any other voiceless consonant, use /s/:
ask => /asks/ etc.

if a plural (noun) or verb ending (/s/) follows a vowel sound or a voiced consonant (that isn't a fricative or an affricate), use /z/:
play => /pleız/ ; weed => /wi:dz/ etc.

There must be a site somewhere that spells all this out. I'll have a look.

b
 

rezaa

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- /s/ after voiceless sounds { p, f , th, t , k , h } except for [s, sh, ch] which are voiceless but they belong to another category called 'hissing sounds'

-/iz/ after the hissing sounds [s , z, sh , ch, 3 , d3]

-/z/ after all sounds saved the above.
 

Noego

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Here's some definitions, I hope it helps:

Fricative
"A consonant, such as f or s in English, produced by the forcing of breath through a constricted passage. Also called spirant."
 

Noego

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Affricative

"A complex speech sound consisting of a stop consonant followed by a fricative; for example, the initial sounds of child and joy."

Fricative is pretty simple.

But I'm not too sure about the meaning of affricative.
 

Noego

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Actually I do understand come to think of it.

Affricative

Sandwiches
Children
Witches
Joy
Adjust

Are all examples of affricatives sounds.

[EDIT]: By the way, in case you're wondering.

About voiced consonants (from Wikipedia):
"[SIZE=-1]A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. Examples are: In English, the main distinction between /b, d, g/ and /p, t, k/ is not that the former are voiced, but rather that the latter are aspirated. There are indeed several English dialects where /b, d, g/ are voiceless."[/SIZE]

Good question by the way. Very enlightening.
 
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BobK

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Actually I do understand come to think of it.

Affricative

Sandwiches
Children
Witches
Joy
Adjust

Are all examples of affricatives sounds.

[EDIT]: By the way, in case you're wondering.

About voiced consonants (from Wikipedia):
"[SIZE=-1]A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. Examples are: In English, the main distinction between /b, d, g/ and /p, t, k/ is not that the former are voiced, but rather that the latter are aspirated. There are indeed several English dialects where /b, d, g/ are voiceless."[/SIZE]

Good question by the way. Very enlightening.

The term I used was affricate: Affricate consonant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
My knee-jerk reaction was that 'affricative' was wrong, but I did a quick check: "affricative" means something closely related but not the same - affricative - definition of affricative by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

My check also extended to Google. There are nearly 10,000 hits for 'affricative'; I wonder how many of them are using it to mean "affricate"? ;-)

b

PS But you've got the main point right, which is what matters. :up:
 
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Noego

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Hmm... that's really weird.



How dare you contest my dictionary!:-D:)

Affricate:

50000.jpg



Out of curiosity, would you be so kind as to explain the difference between those two words?:up:
 

Casiopea

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Out of curiosity, would you be so kind as to explain the difference between those two words?:up:
The following explanation is not mine. It's from airt and aiblins and aglet and aiguille and aiguillette :
Words like affectioned and afferent, even if I don't use them at all, are pretty easy to sound out, but let's pause for a second on affricate. It is interesting that the Collegiate has the term, as does the OED, but the Century does not. That is because the field of modern linguistics was only in its birth at the turn of the century, and the word affricate had not "hardened" into meaning by that time.

The earliest use of affricate (here affricative) as a noun was in 1880 where Sayce said, "Where a spirant or fricative is immediately preceded by an explosive, a double sound or affricative is the result." Ok. An affricate, then, is a "close combination of an explosive consonant or 'stop' with an immediately following fricative or spirant." It really helps a lot that one of the examples Sayce gives of this term is from the Armenian; at least the other is the German "pf." The English example provided in the Collegiate is the "ch" in "choose" being a combination of the "explosive" "t" and the spirant "sh." Hence, the affricate "ch."

All the best. :-D
 

Casiopea

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Ooh, did I forget to mention they're synonyms? At least the nouns are. ;-) And yours, by the way, isn't the only dictionary that lists them as such. There are many that do. Moreover, I can't say that I've heard the term affricative much. In Latin studies, yes, but older publishings, and recent publications too but mostly non-Western ones. As a linguists I can say that I am familiar with the term, but also that it's not all the familiar, as in common.

All the best. :-D
 

Noego

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Houghton Mifflin eReference.

That's the name of the dictionary. My other four dictionaries don't actually have any the words we're discussing.
 

BobK

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Affricative

"A complex speech sound consisting of a stop consonant followed by a fricative; for example, the initial sounds of child and joy."

...

Affricate:

50000.jpg



Out of curiosity, would you be so kind as to explain the difference between those two words?:up:

:?:

As I said, 'affricative' was new to me, so I took the first definition I saw: "Of, relating to, or forming an affricate." It's obviously not a good policy in general to believe the first definition you see, but the distinction seemed to me to make sense.

:)

b
 
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