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Slack voice
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term slack voice (or lax voice) describes the pronunciation of consonants with a glottal opening slightly wider than that occurring in "normal" (modal) voice. Such sounds are often referred to informally as lenis or half-voiced. In some Chinese languages ("dialects") and in many Austronesian languages, the 'intermediate' phonation of slack stops confuses Western listeners, so that different transcription systems may use /p/ or /b/ for the same consonant. Although the IPA has no dedicated diacritic for slack voice, the voiceless diacritic (the under-ring) may be used.
Javanese contrasts slack and stiff voiced bilabial, dental, retroflex, and velar stops:
| Javanese | translation | |
| stiff voice | [d̬amu] | guest |
| slack voice | [d̥amu] | blow |
The Shanghainese "muddy" consonants are also slack voice, the primary effect of which is a slightly breathy quality of the following vowel:
| Shanghainese | translation | |
| slack voice | [d̥ǐ] | earth |
| tenuis | [tíʔ] | (a grammatical particle) |
| aspirated | [tʰí] | heaven |