Does full devoicing occur?

[5jj]

I have to ask - who decided that one was /ʧ/ and the other devoiced /ʤ/?

[birdeen's call]

Also have attached the amplified audio files. 0a and 1a are the full audio files with amplified /ʧ/ and /ʤ/, 0aa and 1aa contain only the latter, isolated.

To me, 1aa sounds more like a /ʤ/, what do you think?
I'm really surprised some people can distinguish the two sounds in normal speech though.

I hear some difference now, but I wouldn't call any of these sounds /ʤ/. They're both /ʧ/'s to me.

[birdeen's call]

If /ʤ/ is fully devoiced, then there is no difference, assuming that there are no fortis/lenis or aspiration factors involved. A Martian phonetician, hearing the underlined sound in "I spoke to Judge Thomas yesterday, might record it as /ʧ/; a native speaker of English might hear it as a devoiced /ʤ/, but would, I believe, record it as /ʧ/.

So the only difference is in perception, not in real sounds? I'm asking these questions, because I'm not sure what the OP is saying. Is it that there is a real objectively perceptible difference between the sounds and the question is whether we can hear it? Or is it that there's no perceptible difference and the question is whether some people will tend to hear one anyway?

[ancor90]

What's the difference between /ʧ/ and devoiced /ʤ/? Do you mean that devoiced is more voiced than voiceless?

No. As I learned, both /ʤ/ and /ʧ/ differ in other aspects besides voicing, which include but are not limited to [1]:

- higher/lower amplitude of burst or frication
- length of the constriction duration
- length of the preceding vowel.

A devoiced /ʤ/ is shorter and less loud than a /ʧ/.

If you really pay attention, you can hear that in the samples I provided in an earlier post.

The first one is a devoiced /ʤ/, the second a /ʧ/.

So the only difference is in perception, not in real sounds?

No, there is a real difference and some native speakers I asked can hear it right away, others can't.

I'm asking these questions, because I'm not sure what the OP is saying.

I'm saying, or rather asking, if such full devoicing occurs in normal speech; and if native speakers are maybe unaware of that and hear voicing although it's not there. Because sometimes I just can't hear voicing where one's supposed to be.

[1] http://www.ualberta.ca/~tnearey/Ling205/Week3/WBPhonemesAndAllophonesEngCs4Up.pdf -- page 8

[5jj]

I'm saying, or rather asking, if such full devoicing occurs in normal speech; and if native speakers are maybe unaware of that and hear voicing although it's not there. Because sometimes I just can't hear voicing where one's supposed to be.

This is why phoneticians use spectograms. Very few people have the ability to hear sounds apparently possessed by such early phoneticians as Henry Sweet and Daniel Jones. If spectograms had been around in the days when they were working, the machines might have revealed that these phoneticians were not as perceptive as everybody thought.