intervocalic voicing of fricatives

[Dennis R. Preston]

True enough, especially in AAVE, but, interestingly, it is more often
stops which devoiced (and deleted), and it is well-documented; W does
this with continuants.

dInIs

>It appears to me that many southerners, black and white, and many young
>people here in the midwest, unvoice all final consonants while keeping the
>variation in vowel length determined by the voicing, whence the vowel
>length becomes phonemic. My ear is not very good so I am not sure, and
>maybe some of it is only partial unvoicing.  In my church choir here in
>Oberlin, when we are reminded of diction, we pronounce the final "t" with a
>clear release in words such as "want", but also in "God" and "Lord" I hear
>some choir members pronouncing the final consonant as a released "t".  One
>(young) member said that in her former choir in Florida she was explicitly
>told not to pronounce it as a released "d" and our {young} choir director
>from Illinois agreed that it sounded bad.  Or should I say bat.
>
>I would be curious to know if trained linguists have detected this.
>
>--Charles Wells
>
>>He just didn't pay attention in phonics class and has extended terminal
>>voicelessness to all words ending with sibilance.  "It's spelled with an -s
>>and people oughta say it with an -s !!"
>>DMLance
>>
>>on 6/25/02 11:42 AM, Dennis R. Preston at preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU wrote:
>>
>>>  And how can any of this account for the fact that W has got no final
>>>  voiced continuants - plurals (e.g., reaches), possessives (e.g., Bin
>>>  Laden's), 3rd person indicatives (e.g., begs) or plain old
>>>  monomorphemes (e.g., badge). Just listen.
>>>
>>>  dInIs
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>  On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Dale Coye wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  #I think I commented a few years ago that Joseph is going the other
>way-- it
>>>>  #was always /z/ in the old days, but many young people here in NJ and I've
>>>>  #heard it from Californians too, now have /s/.   I think
>>>>Jerusalem may have
>>>>  #been /z/ too according to some older dictionaries (100 years ago).
>>>>
>>>>  I've heard Jeru/z/alem for a long time; I guess I'm used to it as an
>>>>  alternate. Like Roly, I've noticed Ka/Z/mir appearing more often in the
>>>>  news reports in recent... hm, months but the past several years as well,
>>>>  ISTM.
>>>>
>>>>  However, I noticed /Z/ many decades ago, if memory serves, in the
>>>>  eponymous "cashmere" -- maybe even in my grandmother's speech (b. NYC
>>>>  approx. 1889) -- and remarked on it to myself.
>>>>
>>>>  #        I also reported in an AS article a while back on a very
>complicated
>>>>  #regional pattern for 'houses'--the noun plural, which can show either
>>/s/ or
>>>>  #/z/ for both final and medial fricative all over the US.
>>>>
>>>>  How does the distribution of the final /s/ in this plural compare with
>>>>  general final plural /s/?
>>>>
>>>>  -- Mark A. Mandel
>>>>  Linguist at Large
>>>
>>>  --
>>>  Dennis R. Preston
>>>  Department of Linguistics and Languages
>>>  Michigan State University
>>>  East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
>>>  preston at pilot.msu.edu
>>>  Office: (517)353-0740
>>>  Fax: (517)432-2736
>>>
>
>
>
>Charles Wells
>professional website: http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/math/wells/home.html
>personal website: http://www.oberlin.net/~cwells/index.html
>genealogical website:
>http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/w/e/l/Charles-Wells/
>NE Ohio Sacred Harp website: http://www.oberlin.net/~cwells/sh.htm

--
Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736