English Language & Usage Asked on July 1, 2021
I am referring to American English here, but this could also be applied to British English for all I know.
Is the "d" really just an alveolar "d" in words like:
and
When I try to pronounce these words like I would with the tongue position of "d" in "dog", a small plosive kind of sound occurs (of my tongue separating from the roof of my mouth) before moving to the next consonant, and it’s noticable. But when I hear Americans say these words, there’s no such sound after the "d".
I don’t know if this makes sense or not but:
haɪd̚‿x‿maɪ
bɹɑd̚‿x‿kʰæst̚
The x refers to that sound of tongue leaving the roof. Try it yourself: put the tip of your tongue on the alveolar ridge and pull it downward, it’s sort of like a click sound.
How do I avoid this sound?
A friend even told me that his "d" in "broadcast" is made with the tongue position for "k", so a bit like "broggcast".
In comments, @Araucaria - Not here any more responded with:
There are several issues here. One is that the feature of the [d] that you cannot hear in these examples is called plosion. This is the effect you get when the articulators cause a blockage in the vocal tract, causing a build-up of high-pressure compressed air, and then suddenly come apart. With a /d/ you get plosion as the tongue comes away from the alveolar ridge (that little shelf behind your top teeth).
There are two possible reasons why you can't hear any plosion here. One is that when /d/ occurs before an /m/, the lips will likely close to make the [m], before the tongue comes away from the alveolar ridge for the release of the [d]. When the tongue does come away from the alveolar ridge the result is inaudible to a listener because it is masked by the lips being closed. The released air will escape through the nose instead of the mouth.
When we have a /d/ before a /g/, there will be a second closure for the [g] further back in the mouth at the velum before the [d]. This will reduce the air pressure behind the [d] and also reduce the volume of air that's released when the tongue leaves the alveolar ridge. Although it will be much quieter than the release of a regular [d], it may still be audible to a listener.
However, more likely than this, in both cases, is that there will be 'dealveolar assimilation'. The consonants made on the alveolar ridge are very unstable, especially [t, d, n]. They tend to change their place of articulation to match that of the following consonant. So a /t/ before a bilabial like /m/ will often become a /p/, a [d] will most often become a /b/ and [n] will become [m]. Behind a velar consonant [k] (as in broadcas these will become [k, g, ŋ] respectively. So what you're hearing is actually hibe my /haɪb mai/ and broagcast /brɔːgkɑ:st/. You can't hear any plosion in those realizations because the air behind the [b] is released nasally, and the air behind the [g] is not released but rather continues to be blocked behind the same alveolar closure which is used for the [k]. The vocal fold (vocal cord) vibration simply turns off during the same closure which is retained for the duration of the [g] and [k] segments. You can't hear any release, and thus any plosion, simply because there isn't any!
Answered by livresque on July 1, 2021
I don't hear the effect you are describing in 'hide my'.
However, 'broagcast' is a common type of assimilation /d/ → /g/. It happens because /k/ is the next sound that follows.
Another time this happens is in 'good girl', which sounds like 'gug girl' /gʊg gɜːl/. Notice that the /d/ changed into a /g/.
There's a good demonstration of this type of assimilation in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDDV01W20bo
In my London accent, I actually pronounce a glottal stop in this position (non-standard). This makes it have a 'swallowed' sound. /gʊʔ gɜːl/ (glottal stop in place of /d/).
Answered by Jade Joddle on July 1, 2021
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