voicelessness

　

WordNet

1. having no voice in the management or control of affairs; "the voicelessness of those who live in situations of hopelessness"

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出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2013/09/05 04:01:56」(JST)

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This article is about the linguistics concept. For the property of being unable to produce a voice, see Muteness. For being unable to speak, see Aphasia. For the sociopolitical concept, see Power (social and political).

Not to be confused with Speechless (disambiguation).

In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation.

The International Phonetic Alphabet has distinct letters for many voiceless and modally voiced pairs of consonants (the obstruents), such as [p b], [t d], [k ɡ], [q ɢ] [f v], [s z]. In addition, there are diacritics for voicelessness, U+0325  ̥ combining ring below and U+030A  ̊ combining ring above, which is used for letters with a descender. Diacritics are typically used with letters for prototypically voiced sounds, such as vowels and sonorant consonants: [ḁ], [l̥], [ŋ̊].

Voiceless vowels and other sonorants

Sonorants are those sounds, such as vowels and nasals, which are voiced in most of the world's languages. However, in some languages sonorants may be voiceless, usually allophonically. For example, the Japanese word sukiyaki is pronounced [su̥kijaki]. This may sound like [skijaki] to an English speaker, but the lips can be seen compressing for the [u̥]. Something similar happens in English with words like peculiar [pʰə̥ˈkjuːliɚ] and potato [pʰə̥ˈteɪtoʊ].

Sonorants may also be contrastively voiceless, not just voiceless due to their environment. Standard Tibetan, for example, has a voiceless /l̥/ in Lhasa, which sounds similar to, but is not as noisy as, the voiceless lateral fricative /ɬ/ in Welsh, and which contrasts with a modally voiced /l/. Welsh contrasts several voiceless sonorants: /m, m̥/, /n, n̥/, /ŋ, ŋ̊/, and /r, r̥/, the latter represented by "rh".

In the Moksha language there is even a voiceless palatal approximant /j̊/ (written in Cyrillic as <йх> jh) along with /l̥/ and /r̥/ (written as <лх> lh and <рх> rh). The last two have also palatalized counterparts /lʲ̥/ and /rʲ̥/ (<льх> and <рьх>). In the Kildin Sami language there is also this /j̊/ <ҋ>.

On the other hand, although contrastively voiceless vowels have been reported several times, they have never been verified (L&M 1996:315).

Lack of voicing contrast in obstruents

Many languages lack a distinction between voiced and voiceless obstruents (stops, affricates, and fricatives). This is nearly universal in Dravidian languages and Australian languages, but is widely found elsewhere, for example in Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Finnish, and the Polynesian languages. Consider Hawaiian, which has a /p/ and /k/, but no /b/ or /ɡ/. In many such languages, obstruents are realized as voiced in voiced environments, such as between vowels or between a vowel and a nasal, and voiceless elsewhere, such as at the beginning or end of the word or next to another obstruent. This is the case for example for Dravidian, Australian, and Korean, but not in Mandarin or Polynesian. Usually these variable sounds are transcribed with the voiceless IPA letters, though in Australia the letters for voiced consonants are sometimes used.

It appears that voicelessness is not a single phenomenon in such languages. In some, such as the Polynesian languages, the vocal cords are required to actively open to allow an unimpeded (silent) airstream. This is sometimes called a breathed (/ˈbrɛθt/) phonation (not to be confused with breathy voice). In others, such as many Australian languages, voicing ceases during the hold of a stop (few Australian languages have any other kind of obstruent) because airflow is insufficient to sustain it, and if the vocal cords open this is due to passive relaxation. Correspondingly, Polynesian stops are reported to be held for longer than Australian stops, and are seldom voiced, whereas Australian stops are prone to having voiced variants (L&M 1996:53), and are often represented as having no phonemically voiceless consonants at all. In Southeast Asia, when stops occur at the end of a word they are voiceless because the glottis is closed, not open, and so these are said to be unphonated (have no phonation) by some phoneticians who considered "breathed" voicelessness to be a phonation.

Yidiny consonants

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar
Stop	b	d		ɟ	ɡ
Nasal	m	n		ɲ	ŋ
Lateral		l
Rhotic		r	ɽ
Semivowel				j	w

Yidiny consonants, with no underlyingly voiceless consonants posited.

References

Notes

General references

• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8. 

English Journal

• Home-based caregiving for people living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

• Mieh TM1, Iwelunmor J, Airhihenbuwa CO.
• Journal of health care for the poor and underserved.J Health Care Poor Underserved.2013 May;24(2):697-705. doi: 10.1353/hpu.2013.0091.
• Caregiving for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) reportedly affects the physical, mental, and socioeconomic well-being of family and volunteer caregivers. This study uses the PEN-3 cultural model to examine the positive, existential (unique), or negative roles and expectations that influence HIV
• PMID 23728037

• The lived experiences of adult intensive care patients who were conscious during mechanical ventilation: a phenomenological-hermeneutic study.

• Karlsson V1, Bergbom I, Forsberg A.
• Intensive & critical care nursing : the official journal of the British Association of Critical Care Nurses.Intensive Crit Care Nurs.2012 Feb;28(1):6-15. doi: 10.1016/j.iccn.2011.11.002. Epub 2011 Dec 14.
• AIM: The aim of this study was to illuminate the lived experience of patients who were conscious during mechanical ventilation in an intensive care unit (ICU).METHOD: Interviews with 12 patients assessed as being conscious during mechanical ventilation were conducted approximately one week after dis
• PMID 22172747

• Acoustic features of voice in patients with severe hearing loss.

• Mora R1, Crippa B, Cervoni E, Santomauro V, Guastini L.
• Journal of otolaryngology - head & neck surgery = Le Journal d'oto-rhino-laryngologie et de chirurgie cervico-faciale.J Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg.2012 Feb;41(1):8-13.
• OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate changes in the acoustic features of voice in patients with sensorineural hearing loss.DESIGN: Thirty male patients, between 35 and 53 years of age with postlingual bilateral symmetric severe sensorineural hearing loss, were included (group A). As a co
• PMID 22498262

Japanese Journal

• 8.発声を考慮した頸部食道再建術(<特集>頸部食道再建術)

• 川原 英之,立松 秀樹,山高 浩一,櫻井 孝志,山本 貴幸
• 日本外科学会雑誌 102(9), 659-662, 2001-09-01
• NAID 110003944808

• 英語における/Vh/音素について

• 竹林 滋
• 言語研究 1970(56), 27-34, 1970
• … Their phonetic description of [Ve] is grossly distorted in order to invent a "mirror-image" correlation between [hV] and [Ve] which justly obtains between /jV, wV/and/Vj, Vw/.<BR>It is quite evident that [hV] is voiceless and [Ve] is voiced, and optional occurences of voiced [fi] between voiced sounds do not nullify the significance of voicelessness of [hV]. …
• NAID 130003565133

Related Links

• Richard A. Grossman, Ph.D., Psychologist, Brookline, MA

Psychotherapy for individuals and couples. Voicelessness and Emotional Survival web site: essays, message board, Therapist List ... Brookline, Massachusetts For the past 30 years, Dr. Richard Grossman has maintained a ...

• Voicelessness.com--Preface - Richard A. Grossman, Ph.D ...

Since I began writing the Voicelessness essays ten years ago, I have received thousands of e-mails from people around the world wanting to share personal histories with a similar theme: the people closest to them could not "hear".

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