PHONETICS MANUAL.indd - HumBox

66. With reference to as many as possible of the following languages (in their
standard version), say whether these sounds are part of the repertoire or not:
English, French, German, Spanish. [x], [ç], [?], [q], [h].
4.07 Aspirates
Here’s an final point about stops which has been kept from you so far. But it should be
noted, as it’s another important difference between English and German on the one
hand, French, Spanish and Italian on the other.
Say the English word pa very slowly, clearly and deliberately. You may notice that the
[A] vowel doesn’t begin immediately after stage (3) of the stop (the “release” stage).
Instead there’s a short pause before the vocal folds begin to vibrate, during which
air passes freely through the glottis. Hence the effect of a puff of breath, or brief [h]
sound, between the [p] and the vowel. The same applies to the other voiceless stops,
e.g. in tar or car.
If the same syllables are pronounced in the French, Spanish or Italian way, the vowels
begin immediately after the release of the [p], [t] or [k] — no delay, so no suggestion
of a puff of breath or an [h]. It is incorrect in these languages to delay the onset of the
vowel.
Voiceless stops followed by a puff of breath (more technically “followed by delayed
vowel onset”) are said to be aspirated. Those without the “aspiration” are — obviously
— said to be unaspirated. The IPA uses a superscript h to indicate aspiration: [p h ], [t h ],
[k h ], but there’s no need to include this detail in an ordinary transcription of English.
Diagramatically the process can be represented as follows (aspirated stop in Fig. 33,
unaspirated stop in Fig. 34):
Fig. 33
release
p h
A:
aspiration
voicing
Fig. 34
release
p
A:
voicing
52 Consonants