''Unreleased'' consonnants

Started by Vawmataw, August 19, 2015, 10:50:19 AM

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Vawmataw

So yesterday I heard that some consonants placed at the end of a word are pronounced quietly. What are they? k, l, p, ... ?
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Vawmataw

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Tirea Aean

They each sound ever so slightly different than ' at the end of a word (unless good mic or in person it's more obvious). But blend into the next word as if they are part of it, if the next word starts with a vowel.

txep atun  therefore sounds identical to "txe pa tun"

Tuna txep. Would have an unreleased p at the end, which means you just finish the utteranxe with lips shut and that's the end.

Same concept for t and k.

Vawmataw

Irayo :) I wondered if there were more letters than these 4 ones.
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Tirea Aean

Yeah just ' p t and k are unreleased as EzyRyder has said. The blending into the next word thing goes for all consonants.

Tstewa Ikrantsyìp

this is slightly confusing for me. if it's not too much trouble, can somebody please explain in a bit more detail....
if not, that's ok.
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Tirea Aean

Quote from: Tstewa Ikrantsyìp on August 19, 2015, 07:09:18 PM
this is slightly confusing for me. if it's not too much trouble, can somebody please explain in a bit more detail....

Wikipedia has a short article about no audible release here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_audible_release which goes into a little bit of detail, but I think the easiest way to explain this would be to hear examples of what to do and not to do. I can prepare recordings if necessary. :)

Plumps

I think even your sound examples, ma Tirea, make it very clear.

Ma Tstewa Ikrantsyìp, listen to the examples of p t and k. Tirea always has the paradigm pa, apa, ap – the last has the unreleased p (t, k respectively)

I'm not even sure about the glottal stop. Has it really an unreleased version?

Kame Ayyo’koti

Quote from: Tstewa Ikrantsyìp on August 19, 2015, 07:09:18 PM
this is slightly confusing for me. if it's not too much trouble, can somebody please explain in a bit more detail....
if not, that's ok.
I'll give it a shot:

An unreleased stop is when you close your mouth like you're going to say the sounds p, t, k, or ', but then don't say them (just keep your mouth closed; don't say "puh", "tuh", or "kuh", not even quietly). The word just gets "cut off" and ends. So when you say a word like "txep" say "txe-" then close your mouth like you're going to say P, but don't say it. It will sound like txe- not txe-puh. I hope that makes sense.

But (to complicate things even more) in Na'vi, if we have a word that normally ends in p, t, k, or ' (which means they are normally closed and the words are just cut off in the p, t, k, or ' "position"), and another word that starts with a vowel follows it, then the p, t, k, or ' is said normally, but it's said like it's a part of the next word.

This is a very different way of speaking than English, so it will probably seem really weird. So like Tirea's example, txep atun is actually pronounced txe pah-tun (the P is said "normally" like "pah", as if it were written *txe patun), not txe- ah-tun. It might be hard to notice the difference until you play around with it or listen carefully to some audio recordings. Just one more of the strange things you have to get used to.

So, condensed rule: If the first word ends in p, t, k, or ', and the next word starts with a vowel, and both words are part of the same sentence, then pretend the p, t, k, or ' is part of the next word and pronounce it that way.
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Tirea Aean

#10
Irayo ma Kame for expanding upon this! :)

Quote from: Kame Ayyo'koti on August 20, 2015, 10:28:35 AM
This is a very different way of speaking than English, so it will probably seem really weird.
Not really, cuz I do this and many people around me do this too. If I were to say, "I dunno bout that", both of those ending "t"s are exactly like in Na'vi. And if I say " Take a break." The k in take is unaspirated (no air puff) and only released to blend in to the next word since it starts with a vowel just like in Na'vi and the k at the end of break is unreleased like in Na'vi.  However, when words begin with t, I tend to aspirate it (puff of air) unlike in Na'vi. Some (US?) English speakers are really used to this stuff and some are not, I guess.