The voiceless alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is t, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t.
Features
Features of the voiceless alveolar plosive:
Varieties of [t]
English has both aspirated and plain [t], but they are allophones.
When [t] occurs at the beginning of a word or a stressed syllable, like in try, senatorial, or today, then it is always aspirated. When it occurs at the beginning of an unstressed syllable that isn't at the beginning of a word, like in volatile, palatable, or theater, then it becomes an alveolar tap in most North American dialects, and it is slightly aspirated or unaspirated in other dialects. When [t] occurs in a consonant cluster following [s], like in stop, strain, or register, then it is always unaspirated. When it occurs at the end of a word, like in pit, waist, or apt, then it is usually unaspirated, and if the word is at the end of an utterance, then the [t] is often unreleased.
The glottal stop and alveolar flap are also allophones of t (the latter occurring only in American English). However, this depends on context, as the glottal stop may be spoken without the speaker even realizing it, and the alveolar flap may also be an allophone of d. See the articles on those consonants for a more complete explanation.
In other languages
The [t] sound is a very common sound cross-linguistically. Most languages have at least a plain [t], and some distinguish more than variety. Many Indian languages, such as Hindi, have a two-way contrast between aspirated and plain [t].
Georgian has aspirated and ejective [t]. They are distinct phonemes, not allophones. Aspirated t is spelled with თ. Ejective t is spelled with ტ.
In German, as in English, aspirated and plain [t] are allophones.
See also
Last updated: 10-17-2005 14:09:42
