Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi everyone,

When you pronounce the words,

1) seeks
2) seeds
3) seats

do you make a distinct difference? Thanks.

William

I certainly do make a distinction. When telling stories about my friend the sultan and his harem, and making sentences like "he see_s 10 women", the difference can be crucial.

I make a distinction, though with my southern English accent the difference between (2) and (3) may be hard to hear as the d and t sounds are almost swallowed.

Often the context will indicate which word you mean, woodcutter's example notwithstanding.

William wrote:Hi everyone,

When you pronounce the words,

1) seeks
2) seeds
3) seats

do you make a distinct difference? Thanks.

William

Of course I can't speak for every variety of English, but for "standard" (yeah, whatever that means) American, a final consonant that is voiced will lengthen the preceding vowel, while a final consonant that is voiceless will shorten the preceding vowel. That means that there is a definite difference between 1 and 3 (voiceless) and 2 (voiced). This is particularly helpful for students who speak Cantonese, where the tendency to pronounce "back" and "bag" the same. Lengthening the vowel in "bag" even if the final articulation isn't perfect, will make the word more understandable.

The difference between "seats" and "seeks" is only a difference of articulation and is much more difficult to hear, although as a native speaker, I sure can hear it.

I presume he is asking the question about the vowel phone. There may be an allophonic difference according to whether the following consonant is a voiced or unvoiced, but I can't hear it.

Stephen Jones wrote:I presume he is asking the question about the vowel phone. There may be an allophonic difference according to whether the following consonant is a voiced or unvoiced, but I can't hear it.

Yes that is exactly the case. Where are you from Stephen? I can't not hear it! <grin>.

I can only parrot what Lorikeet said:

/k/ and /t/ are phonemes

and [i:] are allophones conditioned by -voice or +voice of the following consonant.

Harzer

To Lorikeet, I am from North Wales but moved to Manchester at an early age.

To Harzer, [i] and [i:] are separate phonemes. I doubt if anybody pronounces 'seat' as 'sit', which is what your post implies.

No I'm sure she means that is seat and [i:] is seed and is sit and [I:] is Sid, and I wish I could hear you speak so I'd see how you say it, since we evidently have a real difference here. The sound for see is also [i:]. If I pronounce "see" and then attempt to put a /t/ ending on it (which, in my American English pronunciation has no puff of air at the end) while keeping the length of the vowel the same, it will sound as much like "seat" as like "seed" because of the length of the vowel.

Cheers

Lorikeet

Stephen:

/I/ and /i/ are phonemes, because they contrast strongly enough to serve to distinguish meaning: ship - sheep

and [i:] are allophones because they show a discernible, but not strongly contrasting, difference in the pronunciation of an individual phoneme: beat - bead. These words are distinguished by the strong phonemic contrast /t/ vs /d/, and not by the weak allophonic vowel-contrast.

In English, length is allophonic; in other languages (eg Finnish, Thai) it can be phonemic.

Harzer

I am taking a course in pronunciation, this is what I have learned:

Plosives are:
/p/ /t/ /k/ which are voiceless consonants
/b/ /d/ /g/ which are voiced consonants

When a word ends in a voiceless consonant, the preceding vowel is shortened.
When a word ends in a voiced consonant, the preceding vowel is lengthened.

So the difference between 'seat' / 'seek' and 'seed' is more distinctive.

Also, when an 's' is appended, if the ending consonant is voiceless, it becomes /s/, otherwise if the ending consonant is voiced, it becomes /z/.

So the difference between 'seats' / 'seeks' and 'seeds' is even more distinctive.

But for 'seats' and 'seeks', the plosives /t/ and /s/ are not aspirated and blended into the /s/. That's when I have problem with my pronunciation. The difference to my ears seems to be little.

William, you have learnt well.

Harzer

Strange blindess on my part Harzer: I had never noticed that and [i:] used different symbols apart from the lengthening. I presumed you were writing the two separate phonemes. Mea culpa.

And yes, I was saying the same as you, though I find it very hard to actually hear the allophone in my own speech.