# voiced sound+voiceless sound...>voiced sound



## eli7

"Whenever you have a voiceless sound after a voiced sound, change it to the voiced sound. this is an example of phonological rules. It is also an example of assimilation."

Now, I want to know if I should pronounce "o.k" like "o.g"?! because I have heard og pronunciation by Johnney Depp in the pirates of Carribean 4".
I asked this question from one of my teachers and he said no! because o.k is an abreviation and not a word itself. I asked then what does it stand for, but he said I don't know!

Can we pronounce ok like og because of the rule I explained above? If not why is that?
*<Off topic question deleted>*


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## merquiades

Hello Eli7
I would pronouce it always "okay" never "ogay".  Consonant assimilation involves two consonants back to back, not one in between two vowel sounds. *
<Reply to off-topic question deleted>*


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## eli7

merquiades said:


> Hello Eli7
> I would pronouce it always "okay" never "ogay". Consonant assimilation involves two consonants back to back, not one in between two vowel sounds.
> As per the possible etymologies of the word "okay", I counted at least 30. You can read them here.


I got what you mean but it's not always about consonants. For example: bench...>benches (pronounced ez). Here it's a vowel and consonant.*
<Off-topic>*


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## merquiades

eli7 said:


> I got what you mean but it's not always about consonants. For example: bench...>benches (pronounced ez). Here it's a vowel and consonant.


Yes, you are right. Final s is usually pronounced z after a vowel. I was talking about in the middle of the word, like your case.


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## tFighterPilot

I usually replace /k/ with /g/ when it's preceding a voiced consonant. For example the word מוקדם mukdam (early) is turned into mugdam.


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## berndf

eli7 said:


> I got what you mean but it's not always about consonants. For example: bench...>benches (pronounced ez). Here it's a vowel and consonant.


This is not assimilation but allophonic variation.


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## Dan2

eli7 said:


> "Whenever you have a voiceless sound after a voiced sound, change it to the voiced sound. this is an example of phonological rules.


This is an example of a *possible* rule.  It is *not* a rule of English (or of most languages, I would think, given that vowels are voiced sounds).  (Does anyone know of a language in which this rule holds in general?)


eli7 said:


> Can we pronounce ok like og because of the rule I explained above? If not why is that?


1. No. See above.
2. "OK" is pronounced [oke] (leaving out irrelevant detail).  If your rule applied, "OK" would be pronounced [oge].  But the letter "g" is pronounced [dʒi], not [ge], so "OG" would not represent [oge].

Altho your rule is not a rule of English, and Merquiades is right that "OK" is not normally pronounced [oge], I *can* imagine this pronunciation is a certain style of speech.  So you may well be right that Johnny Depp pronounced it this way.


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## Ben Jamin

Dan2 said:


> If your rule applied, "OK" would be pronounced [oge].  But the letter *"g" is pronounced [dʒi], *not [ge], so "OG" would not represent [oge].


*[dʒi] *is the name of the letter G. The rule you describe here does not exist in English: get, got, give, gas, good, beget, beggar, begin, and so on ...


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## LilianaB

O is a diphthong in OK not a regular vowel, if this makes any difference. It might


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## bibax

> "Whenever you have a voiceless sound after a voiced sound, change it to the voiced sound. this is an example of phonological rules. It is also an example of assimilation."


The opposite rule is commoner. In a consonant cluster all consonants are either voiced or voiceless depending on voiceness of the last consonant in the cluster, e.g. the -tsk*d*- cluster is pronounced [dzgd] in Czech (ts and dz are affricates).


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## bibax

> This is an example of a possible rule. It is not a rule of English...


This is a rule that is applicable for the -s ending in English: cats [-ts], beds [-dz], gets, feeds, ...


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## eli7

bibax said:


> This is a rule that is applicable for the -s ending in English: cats [-ts], beds [-dz], gets, feeds, ...


I found this answer more comprehensible and reasonable, although I am really grateful of you all.
So this rule:"Whenever you have a voiceless sound after a voiced sound, change it to the voiced sound"
can be applied just in the case of consonants with the -s atthe end.
and for the answer of "why ok" is not included in this rule? I would answer the same, besides, ok is an abreviation and rules are just applied to the normal and complete form of the words.


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## LilianaB

I think OK is mostly pronounced the way Dan has mentioned, at least in the Eastern states of the United States. I think Johnny Deep was just pretending being a pirate, that's all. Maybe pirates spoke this way, or at least in the writer's imagination.


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## eli7

Thank you Lili


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## Dan2

Dan2 said:


> But the letter "g" is pronounced [dʒi], not [ge], so "OG" would not represent [oge].





Ben Jamin said:


> [dʒi] is the name of the letter G. The rule you describe here does not exist in English: get, got, give, gas, good, beget, beggar, begin, and so on ...


Sorry for the ambiguity.  How about: The letter "g" is pronounced [dʒi] when it stands alone or is part of an abbreviation (as in the case under discussion).

To all those I misled, please note that "go" is _not _in fact pronounced [dʒio]...



Dan2 said:


> "OK" is pronounced [oke] (leaving out irrelevant detail).





LilianaB said:


> O is a diphthong in OK not a regular vowel, if this makes any difference. It might


Right, it's a diphthong in standard British English.  But for many UK, US, and Caribbean speakers it's a monophthong.  But more importantly, I think the diphthongal pronunciation is one of the "irrelevant details" I referred to.



bibax said:


> This is a rule that is applicable for the -s ending in English: cats [-ts], beds [-dz], gets, feeds, ...


How can you be sure the ending isn't /z/, with the [plain][s][/plain] of "cats" due to assimilation of voicelessness?

,
Dan


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## Ben Jamin

Dan2 said:


> Sorry for the ambiguity.  How about: The letter "g" is pronounced [dʒi] when it stands alone or is part of an abbreviation (as in the case under discussion).


That's what we call "the name of the letter".


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> How can you be sure the ending isn't /z/, with the [ s ] of "cats" due to assimilation of voicelessness?


Can you show me where he mentioned anything to the contrary? He wrote about the grapheme -s and abouts it's pronunciations but nowhere about phonemes.


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## Dan2

eli7 said:


> "Whenever you have a voiceless  sound after a voiced sound, change it to the voiced sound.





bibax said:


> *This* is a rule that is applicable for the -s  ending in English: cats [-ts], beds [-dz], gets, feeds, ...





Dan2 said:


> How can you be sure the ending isn't /z/, with the [ s ] of "cats" due to assimilation of voicelessness?





berndf said:


> Can you show me where he mentioned anything to the contrary?


Sure. Bibax specifically referred to a rule that sees a voiced sound followed by a voiceless sound and changes the voiceless sound into the (corresponding) voiced sound.  He then refers to the plurals "cats" [ts] and "beds" [dz].  The only way this rule could apply to either of these words would be if the plural ending were /s/.  Then "beds" would start out as /bɛd+s/ and become [bɛdz] by the rule he referred to.

I simply pointed out that another possibility is that the English plural (and 3rd-person) ending is /z/, in which case [bɛdz] would not require a rule and a *different* rule would take /kæt+z/ to [kæts] in "cats".


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## bibax

> I simply pointed out that another possibility is that the English plural (and 3rd-person) ending is /z/, in which case [bɛdz] would not require a rule and a *different* rule would take /kæt+z/ to [kæts] in "cats".


I understood it. The "different" rule would be:

"Whenever you have a voiced sound after a voiceless sound, change it to the voiceless sound."

Both rules can be united: the voiceness of a consonant depends on the voiceness of the previous consonant.

It is the so called progressive assimilation of voiceness which is very rare in Czech.
In Czech we have prevalently the regressive assimilation of voiceness.


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## eli7

bibax said:


> This is a rule that is applicable for the -s ending in English: cats [-ts], beds [-dz], gets, feeds, ...


I found something that is not included in your explanation.
In the word "passed", "s" is pronounced like "z", because of a voiced consonant "d".(Am I right?)
So, what is the rule?!why it's not applied in the word "work"?(r is +voice but "k" remains intact and won't change to "g") or about the word "ok" I mentioned before.


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## berndf

eli7 said:


> In the word "passed", "s" is pronounced like "z", because of a voiced consonant "d".(Am I right?)


It is not. The "ss" in "passed" is *not* voiced. Double "s" is never voiced.


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## jazyk

> Double "s" is never voiced.


Sometimes it is, as in _scissors,_ _possessive, _and_ dessert_.


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## berndf

jazyk said:


> Sometimes it is, as in _scissors,_ _possessive, _and_ dessert_.


Oops, you are right. There are a few exceptions.


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## tFighterPilot

Double S can also be /ʃ/ like in posse*ss*ion. With all these special cases it's amazing that English is the most common second language in the world.


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## rayloom

If the rule is supposed to be applicable to English, it doesn't seem to hold true except perhaps for the final s of the plural!
Grabs [-bz]
Absent [-bs]
Cars [-rz]
Nurse [-rs]
Beds [-dz]
Bedside [-ds-]


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## LilianaB

It cannot be followed by a vowel for it to become voiced.


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## eli7

rayloom said:


> If the rule is supposed to be applicable to English, it doesn't seem to hold true except perhaps for the final s of the plural!
> Grabs [-bz]
> Absent [-bs]
> Cars [-rz]
> Nurse [-rs]
> Beds [-dz]
> Bedside [-ds-]



He adds salt to injury! I'm tottaly confused with the rule:"Whenever you have a voiceless sound after a voiced sound, change it to the voiced sound"


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## merquiades

Eli, I'm not really sure about this as I haven't investigated it, but I'd say as a rule of thumb, make final s, when it's a plural ending or a third person present tense form, z, as a rule.  The cases where it's impossible, like in words like "months" "cats" "talks" "laughs", you can't physically make it voiced anyway unless you transform/voice the preceding unvoiced consonant, which I'm pretty sure we don't do (me at least).  Double ss is often z in the middle of a word, as pointed out, but not at the end (pass).  Perhaps derivatives from these final ss never voice to keep the same sound consistent.  Glass, glasses (glasez), Pass, passing.  SSION is sh:  mission. Anyway, so much for practical rules (not very academic).


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## berndf

eli7 said:


> He adds salt to injury! I'm tottaly confused with the rule:"Whenever you have a voiceless sound after a voiced sound, change it to the voiced sound"


There is not simple rule. The distribution of /s/ and /z/ is quite complex and at times erratic.


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## bibax

Another peculiarity:

deaths (voiceless th + s), but paths (voiced the + z), baths, youths, mouths;
a house [haus] - houses [hauziz];
wife [...f] - wives [...vz]; but roofs (not rooves), gulfs, fifes, ...;

Sometimes both voiced and voiceless pronunciation is possible:

oaths, truths, sheaths, wreaths;
scarfs/scarves, wharfs/wharves, hoofs/hooves (with different spelling);

I have an impression that this thread has nothing to do with etymology.


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## merquiades

bibax said:


> Another peculiarity:
> 
> deaths (voiceless th + s), but paths (voiced the + z), baths, youths, mouths;
> a house [haus] - houses [hauziz];
> wife [...f] - wives [...vz]; but roofs (not rooves), gulfs, fifes, ...;
> 
> Sometimes both voiced and voiceless pronunciation is possible:
> 
> oaths, truths, sheaths, wreaths;
> scarfs/scarves, wharfs/wharves, hoofs/hooves (with different spelling);
> 
> I have an impression that this thread has nothing to do with etymology.



I pronounce all of these words here (excepting houses, roofs, and wives) voiceless.  Yes, we should get back to etymology and why this happenedl.

Edit:  After thought,  mouths is voiced when it is a verb, she mouths the words of the song.  It seems like this occurs often to distinguish verbs from nouns.
To house (voiced) someone in your house (unvoiced).  To take a bath (unvoiced)/ to bathe (voiced)


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