box set

[Donald M Lance]

> From: "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
...
> Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 06:55:46 EST
...
> In a message dated 01/30/2002 8:25:43 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:
>
>> I think the
>> undeleted version would have to be /aistti:/ with a geminate, not
>> /aisd/ with voicing:  compare "I'd like my coffee iced", which can
>> only  be /aist/.
>
> Yes, I was mistaken.  I pronounce "iced" as /aist/ not /aisd/ and I suppose
> most people do so.  Second mistake on my part:  English speakers can indeed
> voice halfway through a stop.  Go into your local Plaid (Duncan) Donut shoppe
> and ask for a "vanilla-iced donut" and you will probably say /aistdo/.
...
> From: Benjamin Fortson <fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU>
.....
> Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 09:46:16 -0500
......
> Well, even in "iced donut" you're not *really* "voicing halfway through a
> stop", since the main difference between voiced and voiceless stops is
> voice onset time, i.e., how long after release of the stop closure you
> start vibrating your vocal folds: it's quicker in the case of voiced
> stops. Thus what one writes or thinks of as a geminate d is no different
> from a geminate t until a few milliseconds after the closure.

My ear and my speech mechanisms tell me that the /t/ at the end of the first
syllable is glottalized and the first syllable is temporally short, as
English demands, before the voiceless stop. And then, as Ben points out, the
voice onset follows immediately after release of the stop in the second
syllable, thereby indicating a preceding "voiced" stop -- phonotactic rules
of English. So the gemination here is emic rather than etic.

DMLance