Message-Id: <199511192256.RAA10516@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Sun, 19 Nov 1995 15:44:37 -0700
Reply-To: Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Goran on phonology
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

Goran:
>I don't understand you, people... It seems that my ideas on English are
>a bit skewed... I believed that English aspirates a voiceless plosive if
>and only if it is the first consonant in the word and is followed by a
>vowel. I don't know whether it also happens to the voiced plosives, I
>think not. So if I am right, it doesn't have any distinctive function, and
>replaces its unaspirated pair only in one special case:

If you say "kill" with unaspirated k, an Anglophone will tend to hear it as
"gill".  But the final t in "rot" you can aspirate or not as you please and
it doesn't sound like "rod" unless you voice it.  It would appear that the
two sounds have different distinctive features depending on their context.
Can that be right?
                     ____
 Chris Bogart        \  /  http://www.quetzal.com
 Boulder, CO          \/   cbogart@quetzal.com