I'm Midi_file_man (MIDI is supposed to be capitalized, I wasn't thinking about it when I made this account), from British Columbia, Canada.
Studies and Interests edit
I've a wide range of interests, which I will list here:
- Computer Science, especially cryptography, hardware, and programming.
- Engineering, especially electronics and metal fabrication.
- LGBT rights
- Linguistics, especially grammar, morphology, orthography, phonology, phonetics, and syntax.
- Mathematics, especially algebra, logic, and set theory.
- Music, especially music theory and Balkan music.
- Neurology, especially neuroplasticity and adult neurogenesis.
- Physics, especially nuclear, particle, and quantum physics.
Opinions edit
Linguistics edit
Alveolar Affricates In English edit
As a native English speaker, I'm certain that my dialect, as well as similar dialects such as General American and Received Pronunciation use the voiceless alveolar affricate, [t͡s], and the voiced alveolar affricate, [d͡z], as allophones of the consonant clusters, [ts] and [dz], respectively, that occurs only at syllable codas.
Based on the definition of an affricate as a stop consonant released as a fricative, I have to conclude that an unreleased stop followed by a fricative would be phonetically equivalent. In phonetics, for the definition of a consonant cluster to be distinct from an affricate, a stop consonant followed by a fricative must be released. For example, the word "cats" is almost never pronounced as [kʰats]/[kʰæts] but rather, [kʰat̚s]/[kʰæt̚s], which is phonetically equivalent to [kʰat͡s]/[kʰæt͡s]. The same reasoning can be used for the word "lads," phonetically spelling it as [lad͡z]/[læd͡z].
I have my own hypothesis as to why this allophone occurs: the consonant clusters are a fortis while the affricate is a lenis. People naturally tend towards easier pronunciation, causing a wide range of phonetic phenomena (e.g. palatalization). This can manifest as failure to release a stop consonant in certain situations, including this one.