Voice (phonetics) Totally Explained

Everything about Voiced Consonant totally explained

In phonetics, voice or voicing is one of the three major parameters used to describe a sound. It is usually treated as a binary parameter with sounds being described as either voiceless (unvoiced) or voiced, although in fact there can be degrees of voicing (see below).
A voiced sound is one in which the vocal cords vibrate, and a voiceless sound is one in which they do not. Voicing is the difference between pairs of sounds such as [s] and [z] in English. If one places the fingers on the voice box (ie the location of the Adam's apple in the upper throat), one can feel a vibration when one pronounces zzzz, but not when one pronounces ssss. (For a more detailed, technical explanation, see phonation.) Vowels are usually voiced. Consonants may be voiced or unvoiced.

English examples

Voiceless consonant (surd)	Voiced equivalent
[p] (pin)	[b] (bin)
[t] (ten)	[d] (den)
[k] (con)	[g] (gone)
[tʃ] (chin)	[dʒ] (gin)
[f] (fan)	[v](van)
[θ] (thin, thigh)	[ð] (then, thy)
[s] (sip)	[z] (zip)
[ʃ] (pressure)	[ʒ] (pleasure)

Obstruents commonly come in voiced and voiceless pairs like those above. Voiceless consonants are usually articulated more strongly than their voiced counterparts, because in voiced consonants, the airflow energy used in pronunciation is split between the laryngeal vibration and the oral articulation.

Voiceless vowels and other sonorants

The IPA diacritic for devoicing is the under-ring, [  ̥]. This is used where no separate symbol is available, for example for devoicing vowels (vowels which have lost part of their sonority).
   Vowels 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 very similar happens in English with words like peculiar and particular.
   Types of consonants which are usually voiced (sonorants) may also be voiceless. Tibetan, for example, has a voiceless [l̥] in Lhasa, which sounds similar to, but isn't as fricative as, the voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ]. Welsh has several voiceless sonorants: /m̥/, /n̥/, /ŋ̊/, and /r̥/, the latter in the name Rhiannon.

Voicing in English

Beside the pairs of voiceless and voiced 'obstruent' consonants given above, other voiced sounds in English are the nasals, for example /m, n, ŋ/; the approximants, for example /l, r, w, j/ (the last spelled ); and the vowels. These sounds are called sonorants.
In most languages, the difference between /b, d, g/ and /p, t, k/ is that /b, d, g/ are voiced, while /p, t, k/ are not. However, in many English dialects (including Received Pronunciation and American English), the main distinction isn't that /b, d, g/ are voiced, but rather that /p, t, k/ are aspirated. That is, they differ in when voicing starts. In most English dialects, /b, d, g/ are partially voiceless in some environments, such as word initially. In fact, after an /s/, the contrast between /p, t, k/ and /b, d, g/ is lost; when a child learning English has acquired voicing distinctions, but not yet acquired the clusters /sp, st, sk/, the child's pronunciation of spy, sty, sky sounds to an adult like buy, die, guy.

Degrees of voicing

There are two variables to degrees of voicing: intensity (discussed under phonation), and duration (discussed under voice onset time). When a sound is described as "half voiced" or "partially voiced", it isn't always clear whether that means that the voicing is weak (low intensity), or if the voicing only occurs during part of the sound (short duration). In the case of English, it's often the latter.

Voice and tenseness

There are languages with two sets of contrasting obstruents that are labelled /p t k f s x …/ vs. /b d ɡ v z ɣ …/ even though there's no involvement of voice (or voice onset time) in that contrast. This happens for instance in several Southern German dialects such as Alsatian or Swiss German. Since voice isn't involved, this is explained as a contrast in tenseness, called a fortis and lenis contrast.
There is a hypothesis that the contrast between fortis and lenis consonants is related to the contrast between voiceless and voiced consonants, a relation based on sound perception as well as on sound production, where consonant voice, tenseness and length are but different manifestations of a common sound feature.

Further Information

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