aspiration of voiceless stop consonants

Hi all,

Aspiration of voiceless stop consonants, in my opinion, is something that many non-native speakers miss when they speak english. Many Japanese or French speakers tend to say /pik/ where many native speakers say /p_hIk/(depending on accents).

In general rules, /t/ /p/ and /k/ in syllable clusters starting with an s aren't aspirated even when they're stressed. For example, according to my phonetics textbook, in General American,
top [t_hAp]
stop [stAp]

So how about in words where there's a boundary between /s/ and a voiceless stop consonant? For example, how is the word "mistake" pronounced? it the t supposed to be aspirated or not? What about the word "sixteen"? is it /sIkst_hi:n/ or /sIksti:n/?

Also is it true that when people are trying to speak carefully, they tend to use more aspiration than they normally do?

Thanks in advance.

When I say stop, I do not aspirate the T, because the S and the T are combined into one sound. When I say sixteen, I do aspirate the T, because it stands on its own: six - teen.

Normally I don't aspirate T's that come at the end of a word or syllable (parent, can't, set, late), but I do if they begin a word or syllable (tell, tame, material, tattoo).

(Of course, since I'm an American, some of my T's do other things as well -- become D's, become glottal stops, or disappear entirely!)

Sho:

Yes, remember that when a /t/ precedes an unstressed syllable starting with a vowel, like in "better" or "tomato" (or when it comes word-finally before a vowel in rapid speech, like in the phrase "it is"), it becomes a flap, [4].

Also people don't often pronounce a fully articulated, aspirated [t] at the ends of words. Usually a word-final T that isn't flapped is pronounced as an incomplete articulation [t_}] or a glottal stop [?].

I should add that word-initial T's never seem to be flapped, regardless of stress. ("the tomato" = [D@t@"meI.4oU])

How about "stop it"? It's [stApit_}] with an unaspirated [p], right?

>>I should add that word-initial T's never seem to be flapped, regardless of stress. ("the tomato" = [D@t@"meI.4oU]) <<

At least in my dialect, word-initial (in words with unstressed first syllables) and word-final /t/ *are* flapped when they are preceded by sonorants (including vowels) and followed by vowels. Notably, post-sonorant word-final /t/ is realized as [?] unless followed by a vowel, where then it is realized as [4], showing that it is still phonemically /t/ underneath it all.

<<At least in my dialect, word-initial (in words with unstressed first syllables) and word-final /t/ *are* flapped when they are preceded by sonorants (including vowels) and followed by vowels.>>

Hmm, that's interesting. In my dialect the initial /t/ of "to" (and derivatives like "together") is often flapped, but other than that, I can't think of any situations where I'd flap an initial /t/.

So you would pronounce "the tomato" as [D@4@me4o]?

Whoops - one thing I forgot - for word-initial /t/, it must be in an unstressed syllable for such to happen, which is why such often happens at the starts of one-syllable grammar words but not most non-"short" words (as most non-"short" words in everyday usage in English have word-initial or at least root-initial stress).

I think the aspiration pattern for P's is similar to that of T's, Thomas. So, no, I don't aspirate the P in "stop it".

Thanks people for your replies. How about mistake? Do you pronounce it /mIst_heIk/ or /mIsteIk/?

I pronounce the "t" in "mistake" unaspirated. Even though the etymology is "mis" + "take", I treat the word as though the second syllable were "stake": [mI.steIk].

As another example of syllabification differing from etymology, I pronounce the word "disgust" as if it were "di-skust" [dI.skVst].

Me too. Disgust and discussed are identical when I say them.

I similarly pronounce those as:

"mistake" : /mI"stek/ -> [mI."stek]
"disgust" : /dI"sg@st/ -> [dI."skVst]

Just to keep this interesting thread alive; 1) I was wondering whether /t/ in ‘battery’ becomes flap. And how do you pronounce it as I find this ‘battery’ a bit confusing.
2) Also, how about ‘kipper’ ‘and clipper’? Do you aspirate the K’s in these two examples?

Many thanks in advance

Paul N.