unreleased stop

A stop consonant with no audible release, also known as an unreleased stop, checked stop or an applosive, is a plosive with no release burst: no audible indication of the end of its occlusion (hold). In the International Phonetic Alphabet, lack of an audible release is denoted with an upper-right corner diacritic () after the consonant letter, as in: , , .

Audibly released stops, on the other hand, are not normally indicated. If a final stop is aspirated, the aspiration diacritic is sufficient to indicate the release. Otherwise, the "unaspirated" diacritic of the Extended IPA may be employed for this: ''apt'' .

English

In most dialects of English, the first stop of a cluster has no audible release, as in ''apt'' , ''doctor'' , or ''logged on'' . Although such sounds are frequently described as "unreleased", the reality is that since the two consonants overlap, the release of the former takes place during the hold of the latter, masking the former's release and making it inaudible. That can lead to cross-articulations that seem very much like deletions or complete assimilation.

For example, ''hundred pounds'' may sound like but X-ray and electropalatographic studies demonstrate that since inaudible and possibly-weakened contacts may still be made, the second in ''hundred pounds'' does not entirely assimilate a labial place of articulation but co-occurs with it.

In American English, a word-final stop is typically unreleased; that is especially the case for /t/, but in that position, it is also analyzed as experiencing glottal reinforcement.

Such sounds may occur between vowels, as in some pronunciations of ''out a lot''. The overlap there appears to be with a glottal stop, : the is pronounced, and since it is between vowels, it must be released. However, its release is masked by the glottal stop.'no (audible) release'
''John Wells's phonetic blog'', 2012 March 14. The term for this is t-glottalization.

The term "unreleased" is also used for a stop before a homorganic nasal, as in ''catnip''. In such cases, however, the stop is released as a nasal in a ''nasal release'' and so it would be more precisely transcribed .

Other languages

In most languages in East and Southeast Asia with final stops, such as Cantonese, Hokkien, Korean, Malay, Thai, and West Coast Bajau, the stops are not audibly released: ''mak'' . That is true even between vowels. That is thought to be caused by an overlapping glottal stop and is more precisely transcribed . A consequence of an inaudible release is that any aspirated–unaspirated distinction is neutralized. Some languages, such as Vietnamese, which are reported to have unreleased final stops, turn out to have short voiceless nasal releases instead. The excess pressure is released (voicelessly) through the nose and so there is no audible release to the stop.

Formosan languages

The Formosan languages of Taiwan, such as Tsou and Amis realize all obstruents as released but not aspirated, as in Tsou "four" and "to pierce", or Amis "one" and "four".

Gyalrong languages

In Gyalrongic languages, plosives and nasal stops could be unreleased after a glottal stop,Page 27, ''A Grammar of RGyalrong, Jiǎomùzú (Kyom-kyo) Dialects: A Web of Relations'' Marielle Prins 2016, 9789004324565 for example:
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Pirahã

In Pirahã, the only surviving dialect of the Mura language, there is a special register of speech using solely humming, which does not involve an audible release and may be transcribed as of different length and tone.

Munda

Munda languages such as Santali are characterized by checked syllable-final plosives that are both unreleased and glottalized.

See also

* Checked tone
* Glottal reinforcement
* Lateral release (phonetics)
* Nasal release
* T-glottalization

References

Sources

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External links

'Unreleased'
(John C. Wells)

'No (audible) release'
(John C. Wells)

'Unreleased stops'
(University of Manitoba)

Plosives