# pronunciation: /s/ or /z/ [plural nouns]



## AmEStudent

(American English) How can I know whether to use /s/ or /z/ at the end of a plural noun? I noticed that nouns ending with vowels seem to use /z/, but it's just a conjecture, since I've heard some ending with consonants take /z/ too...


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## Loob

Hi AmEStudent

You might like to have a look at these previous threads:
The pronunciation of the (S) letter
pronunciation of final -ed and final -s.


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## audiolaik

Hi,

After 'p', 'k', 'f', the letter 's' is pronounced /s/. After 'ce', 'ge', 'se', 'ze', you need to add an extra syllable /iz/. 

When it comes to 'es', after 'ch', 'sh', 'ss', 'x', you also say /iz/.   

Audiolaik


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## AmEStudent

Thank you very much, such a simple rule! Wanted to search for it but couldn't find the right words.


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## boozer

audiolaik said:


> Hi,
> 
> After 'p', 'k', 'f', the letter 's' is pronounced /s/.


And "t", Audio, e.g. slots.  And we must emphasise that we are talking about the sounds, not the letters.

In fact, to further simplify the rule, you may say that most of the time you must say /z/ or /iz/ depending on the preceding sounds and the exceptions are listed above.


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## gvergara

boozer said:


> And "t", Audio, e.g. slots.  And we must emphasise that we are talking about the sounds, not the letters.
> 
> In fact, to further simplify the rule, you may say that most of the time you must say /z/ or /iz/ depending on the preceding sounds and the exceptions are listed above.


The most precise rule is: after voiced sounds, use /z/, and after voicelss sounds, use /s/. Voiced sounds are those which produce the vibration of the vocal folds, whereas voiceless sounds do not. Try putting your hand around your neck and produce any vowel sound at all; then pronunce the letter p, see there is a difference?
To finish with, I would say that because of the devoicing of (final) sounds, it is always safer to pronounce /s/, not /z/.

Gonzalo


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## boozer

gvergara said:


> To finish with, I would say that because of the devoicing of (final) sounds, it is always safer to pronounce /s/, not /z/.
> 
> Gonzalo


Surely we know the rule, Gonzalo, I just meant to simplify it 

But I strongly disagree that it is safer to always pronounce /s/. This is dooming the person to always speak incorrect English...


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## gvergara

boozer said:


> Surely we know the rule, Gonzalo, I just meant to simplify it
> 
> But I strongly disagree with it being safer to always pronounce /s/. This is dooming the person to always speak incorrect English...


Well, AmEStudent surely didn't know it. You tried to simplify it, whereas I tried to make it more precise  And as to the second point, don't forget that I said _safer_, not _better_. To always pronounce the plural marker _s with an /s/ may certainly be incorrect from the normative point of view, but it is definitely suitable from the descriptive point of view. I've always felt that foreigners may sound a bit pretentious trying to abide by grammatical/ phonetic rules which natives do not usually respect themselves.

Gonzalo


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## audiolaik

boozer said:


> And "t", Audio, e.g. slots.  And we must emphasise that we are talking about the sounds, not the letters.
> 
> In fact, to further simplify the rule, you may say that most of the time you must say /z/ or /iz/ depending on the preceding sounds and the exceptions are listed above.



Of course, boozer! You're 100% right!!! My absent-mindedness drives me round the bend.


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## boozer

gvergara said:


> Well, AmEStudent surely didn't know it. You tried to simplify it, whereas I tried to make it more precise  And as to the second point, don't forget that I said _safer_, not _better_. To always pronounce the plural marker _s with an /s/ may certainly be incorrect from the normative point of view, but it is definitely suitable from the descriptive point of view. I've always felt that foreigners may sound a bit pretentious trying to abide by grammatical/ phonetic rules which natives do not usually respect themselves.
> 
> Gonzalo


But it is also very difficult to say /pʌbs/ or /krægs/  Besides, I really don't think devoicing of final sounds is so rife in English. It certainly is the norm in my language, but not in English. So if the assimilation of sounds is to count for anything, it is much easier to say either /pʌbz/ and /krægz/ or /pʌps/ and /kræks/ (You see how devoicing produces different words).

I feel, however, that your suggestion might work better with some sonorants like /r/, /l/, /m/, /n/... It is not so difficult to say /skɪls/ instead of /skɪlz/, for instance. But I still do not like it 

One of the reasons I don't like it is that "descriptive" and "temporary" solutions normally become permanent and stick forever. Years ago as a teacher I would hear some of my students say /bed/ instead of /bæd/. A colleague of mine had told them they could do so until they actually mastered the /æ/ sound. That was the reason why they _never_ did.


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## AmEStudent

The unvoiced consonant rule is fine for me. It's already starting to get it entrenched in my brain.

Btw, is there any specific rules about pronouncing s' which are _part of a_ word too? (such as business where the first /s/ is pronounced /z/)


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## gvergara

boozer said:


> But it is also very difficult to say /pʌbs/ or /krægs/  Besides, I really don't think devoicing of final sounds is so rife in English. It certainly is the norm in my language, but not in English. So if the assimilation of sounds is to count for anything, it is much easier to say either /pʌbz/ and /krægz/ or /pʌps/ and /kræks/ (You see how devoicing produces different words).
> 
> I feel, however, that your suggestion might work better with some sonorants like /r/, /l/, /m/, /n/... It is not so difficult to say /skɪls/ instead of /skɪlz/, for instance. But I still do not like it


 
I don't agree with you on that point. It would certainly be difficult to say /pʌbs/ or /krægs/, if the final _b and _g were pronounced "properly", but don't forget that devoicing also takes place at the end of singular nouns. It's true that _pub_ and _crag_ should be pronounced with a voiced sound at the end, but because of devoicing, those sounds are softened and in some cases become either voiceless or almost imperceptible, which validates what I said. I'm not saying it's coprrect, but some things must just be accepted and not questioned. At some point in my life I had to give up trying to pronounce the plural mark the way it should be pronounced. Every day I am in contact with native English speakers (both teachers and non-teachers), and I would feel really pretentious trying to apply a phonetic rules which they do not apply themselves, the existence of which they ignore and/ or dismiss. 



AmEStudent said:


> The unvoiced consonant rule is fine for me. It's already starting to get it entrenched in my brain.
> 
> Btw, is there any specific rules about pronouncing s' which are _part of a_ word too? (such as business where the first /s/ is pronounced /z/)


There is no rule, as far as I know. But maybe somebody will come up with useful clues.


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## Loob

gvergara said:


> Every day I am in contact with native English speakers (both teachers and non-teachers), and I would feel really pretentious trying to apply a phonetic rules which they do not apply themselves, the existence of which they ignore and/ or dismiss.


Which native English speakers don't voice the _s_ at the end of _pubs_? I've never, ever heard it pronounced /pʌbs/ or /pʌps/. Oh, or /pʌs/...


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## gvergara

Loob said:


> Which native English speakers don't voice the _s_ at the end of _pubs_? I've never, ever heard it pronounced /pʌbs/ or /pʌps/. Oh, or /pʌs/...


Not surprised, as you're a native speaker. I was shocked when a phonetic teacher of mine told us that we Chilean Spanish speakers barely pronounce the intervocalic _b_, and I strongly opposed to that in class. But when I tried pronouncing _ábaco_, the only thing I could do was to accept it. The final __d_ in Spanish words is pretty much imperceptible in my country, and probably the only ones who do pronounce it are foreigners, so, in the end, the thing is: if you want to form linguists with impeccable (though sometimes stilted English), teach them from the normative point of view; if you want to prepare students to face real, everyday English, then do it from the descriptive point of view. That's up to the teacher. Cheers


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## Loob

gvergara said:


> if you want to prepare students to face real, everyday English, then do it from the descriptive point of view.


I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment, Gonzalo. But that still leaves me with a pronunciation of _pubs_ that ends in two voiced consonants. That's a descriptive 'fact' for every variety of English I'm familiar with; it's not a prescriptive 'rule'.

Afterthought:  I've certainly heard non-native speakers use an unvoiced 's' to pluralise a word ending in a voiced consonant.  It's one thing I remember fondly about Abba songs....  

I wonder if that's what you've heard?


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## boozer

gvergara said:


> I don't agree with you on that point. It would certainly be difficult to say /pʌbs/ or /krægs/, if the final _b and _g were pronounced "properly", but don't forget that devoicing also takes place at the end of singular nouns...


It never does in English. 
It does in my language. Perhaps it does in Spanish. But not in English. In English voicing or devoicing makes the difference between words.


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## gvergara

boozer said:


> It never does in English.
> It does in my language. Perhaps it does in Spanish. But not in English. In English voicing or devoicing makes the difference between words.


Never say never when it comes to languages. English is so widely spoken that it is simply impossible for the millions of English speakers around the world to pronounce the plural desinence _s by the book. They just don't; as a non-native teacher of English interested in phonetics and phonology I try to capture all those details which just escape the natives.


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## Loob

gvergara said:


> They just don't.


We'll have to agree to differ, Gonzalo. I - and all the descriptions I've read - think they just _do_.


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## boozer

Loob said:


> We'll have to agree to differ, Gonzalo. I - and all the descriptions I've read - think they just _do_.


Same here. In all the correct English I've ever heard, there is no devoicing of final sounds in the singular that would justify assimilation to /s/ in the plural. 

Agreeing to differ seems to be a peaceful solution under the circumstances.


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## Nunty

gvergara said:


> Never say never when it comes to languages. English is so widely spoken that it is simply impossible for the millions of English speakers around the world to pronounce the plural desinence _s by the book. They just don't; as a non-native teacher of English interested in phonetics and phonology I try to capture all those details which just escape the natives.



Can you tell us which native English speakers do not pronounce it and how you came by the information?


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## iskndarbey

I agree with everyone but Gonzalo, the distinction between /s/ and /z/ in plural forms is preserved very clearly in every word by virtually 100% of native English speakers of all mainstream accents. In fact, trouble with this area is one of the most common markers of foreign/non-native speech. Devoicing of final consonants is common in many Spanish accents but it is vanishingly rare in English.


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## JamesM

boozer said:


> Same here. In all the correct English I've ever heard, there is no devoicing of final sounds in the singular that would justify assimilation to /s/ in the plural.


 
Another vote (from an American English speaker this time) for this position.

If you drop the "b" in the "pubs" and and add "s" rather than "z" you get pus, a completely different word with a very different meaning.  It may be true that non-native speakers might say "pus" for "pubs" but it will certainly confuse a native speaker. If you use a "p" for the "b" and devoice the "s" you get pups, another completely different word.

In my experience, the most difficult non-native speakers to understand are those that drop the final consonant sound. My ear can adapt to substituted vowel sounds, but in English much of the distinction of a word comes from the final consonant sound(s). Without them there are too many possible choices for each word to quickly decode the speaker's intention.


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## AmEStudent

I can think of cases like a "t" as in "tests", or a "th" as in "paths", but a complete devoicing would be a dialectal feature, I think.


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## Loob

AmEStudent said:


> I can think of cases like a "t" as in "tests", or a "th" as in "paths", but a complete devoicing would be a dialectal feature, I think.


I don't understand your point, AmES. The final "t" in "test" is unvoiced, so "tests" ends in  /ts/.  The "th" in "path" changes* from unvoiced in the singular to voiced in the plural, so "paths" ends in /ðz/.
__________________
* in my variety of English, at least.


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## AmEStudent

Loob said:


> I don't understand your point, AmES. The final "t" in "test" is unvoiced, so "tests" ends in  /ts/.  The "th" in "path" changes* from unvoiced in the singular to voiced in the plural, so "paths" ends in /ðz/.
> __________________
> * in my variety of English, at least.



I mean completely devoicing the final consonant so as to pronounce test /tess/ and paths /paz/or/pas/.


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## gvergara

Nunty said:


> Can you tell us which native English speakers do not pronounce it and how you came by the information?


Don't get me wrong, never said the _s ending is not pronounced by the natives; I just said natives don't stick strictly to the plural mark pronunciation rule.<< --- >> But I still think devoicing takes place. It's been an interesting discussion, anyway, bye

Gonzalo


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## Loob

AmEStudent said:


> I mean completely devoicing the final consonant so as to pronounce test /tess/ and paths /paz/or/pas/.


Ah...
That's not _devoicing_ - that's _omitting_!


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## AmEStudent

Loob said:


> Ah...
> That's not _devoicing_ - that's _omitting_!



Oh. Yeah, you're right. Utter devoicing, let's say then


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## JamesM

AmEStudent said:


> Oh. Yeah, you're right. Utter devoicing, let's say then


 
If you use the word "devoice" you will be misunderstood.  I highly recommend avoiding it. "Drop" or "omit" would be better words.


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## AmEStudent

JamesM said:


> If you use the word "devoice" you will be misunderstood.  I highly recommend avoiding it. "Drop" or "omit" would be better words.



Sure will, I just got carried by the flow of "devoice"s in the previous posts and automatically used that word, without even thinking of its meaning.


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## Loob

Gonzalo, I wonder if what you're hearing is "assimilation" rather than "devoicing"?

I'd happily accept that the quality of a plural or third person singular /s/ or /z/ can be affected by what comes after it....


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## boozer

Loob said:


> Gonzalo, I wonder if what you're hearing is "assimilation" rather than "devoicing"?
> 
> I'd happily accept that the quality of a plural or third person singular /s/ or /z/ can be affected by what comes after it....


 
I mentioned assimilation a few times already, but it was Loob's excellent suggestion that made me think beyond the boundaries of the word itself.

Of course, while speaking, we produce an uninterrupted string of sounds (that is, if we think smoothly ) in which what follows certainly does affect our speech patterns. 

How would you, in connected speech, pronounce the following phrases, for instance:

the words I said - /ðəwɜːdzaɪsed/ - here it's all very clear
the words said by me - /ðəwɜːdzsedbaɪmiː/ - I tried dozens of times to make myself utter /z/ and /s/ one after the other but failed miserably. The result I did get, however, was your regular boring /s/. Or something in-between /s/ and /z/ at best. 
the words felt by me - /ðəwɜːdzfeltbaɪmiː/ - same here; more like /s/ really

Well, could that be anticipatory assimilation, I wonder? And would it be the same before /p/, /t/ and /k/ as well? I would tentatively say yes before someone tells me it's all rubbish. 

All of this does not mean we could bend the rule to the point of breaking and say it's safer to always pluralise with /s/, of course.


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## iskndarbey

boozer said:


> I mentioned assimilation a few times already, but it was Loob's excellent suggestion that made me think beyond the boundaries of the word itself.
> 
> Of course, while speaking, we produce an uninterrupted string of sounds (that is, if we think smoothly ) in which what follows certainly does affect our speech patterns.
> 
> How would you, in connected speech, pronounce the following phrases, for instance:
> 
> the words I said - /ðəwɜːdzaɪsed/ - here it's all very clear
> the words said by me - /ðəwɜːdzsedbaɪmiː/ - I tried dozens of times to make myself utter /z/ and /s/ one after the other but failed miserably. The result I did get, however, was your regular boring /s/. Or something in-between /s/ and /z/ at best.
> the words felt by me - /ðəwɜːdzfeltbaɪmiː/ - same here; more like /s/ really
> 
> Well, could that be anticipatory assimilation, I wonder? And would it be the same before /p/, /t/ and /k/ as well? I would tentatively say yes before someone tells me it's all rubbish.
> 
> All of this does not mean we could bend the rule to the point of breaking and say it's safer to always pluralise with /s/, of course.



Some assimilation does take place, but to me the distinction remains very clear. The medial consonant in "The words said by me" is quite different from that in "The warts said by me".


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## hplv1561w

AmEStudent said:


> The unvoiced consonant rule is fine for me. It's already starting to get it entrenched in my brain.
> 
> Btw, is there any specific rules about pronouncing s' which are _part of a_ word too? (such as business where the first /s/ is pronounced /z/)



In the word business, *s* is in the middle position and between 2 vowels, so --> pronounce /z/.
For more details please refer to pronunciation of /s/


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## daniar

I'm sorry for posting 2-3 years after the thread has already finished but I've thought about pronunciation of 's' in plural forms, e.g. castles, rooms, eyes, etc., and I've certainly heard native speakers pronounce such words with a /s/ sound, rather than /z/ ( sometimes very clearly).

<<Moderator note Please open separate threads on the issue of _of_  and _and_>>


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## dreamlike

<<Response to deleted questions>> 

By the way, your English is fantastic for a 13-year-old non-native speaker of English!


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## JamesM

I can't imagine a native speaker using the "s" sound on eyes.  It would be heard as "ice".  This is, in fact, one of the typical problems in communication between German speakers and English speakers.  A native German speaker will say "eyes" with an "s" sound and it will be heard as "ice".   The only difference in pronunciation between the two words is the "s" or "z" sound.

"Rooms" with an "s" sound at the end would sound like "roomps", I imagine, because there is no way to elide the "m" and "s" sound in English, in my experience.  The stop between the two sounds would come across as a "p".  

I can force myself to say "castles" with an "s" sound at the end but it is very difficult.  The only easy way to do it is to fake a German accent.  

(The question about "of" should be opened in a new thread.  This thread is about /s/ vs. /z/ sounds.)


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## cointi

Hi,

I am here to say that gvergara and daniar are right, most native speakers will partially or fully devoice obstruents if they are not intervocalic (between two vowels). There are plenty of acoustic studies that confirm this. But the devoiced sound will still sound different from a "pure" voiceless sound because voicing (i.e. vibration of the vocal folds) is only one of the phonetic cues that distinguish between the so-called voiced and voiceless sounds, which in English are more accurately described as lenis and fortis. Still, there is usually little or no vibration in /z/ at the end of words.

In fact, native speakers will devoice obstruents in most contexts. Few people (and teachers) know this and those students who carefully follow their teacher's instruction to mark plurals with /z/ end up over-pronouncing them. But most learners will devoice the sound anyway, since there is a universal tendency across languages to devoice obstruents.

Edit: Some speakers will retain full voicing, of course.


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## Loob

Cointi, you can quote your acoustic studies till the cows come home.  But the simplest and best advice to give to second-language learners of English in relation to plurals and the third person singular of verbs is still "use /z/ after a vowel or voiced consonant; use /s/ after an unvoiced consonant".


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## cointi

Loob said:


> Cointi, you can quote your acoustic studies till the cows come home. But the simplest and best advice to give to second-language learners of English in relation to plurals and the third person singular of verbs is still "use /z/ after a vowel or voiced consonant; use /s/ after an unvoiced consonant".



How come? In native production, the sound is much closer to /s/ than /z/. It's an acoustic fact. (I know that science is frowned upon here because it debunks people's long-held beliefs and it always hurts a bit.) Given given the facts, *the* *simplest advice* to give to second-language learners of English would be to just use /s/ everywhere, there is much less to remember and watch out for. It doesn't mean it's* the best advice*, though. *If you really want to sound like a native speaker you should perhaps learn how to partially devoice your obstruents, which is extremely difficult, but possible.* I understand people's attachment to the old rule, though. And I don't think it's necessarily wrong to follow it. Just don't over-pronounce the /z/ and you should be fine.


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## Loob

You stick with your view, cointi; I'll stick with mine.


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## Forero

cointi said:


> Hi,
> 
> I am here to say that gvergara and daniar are right, most native speakers will partially or fully devoice obstruents if they are not intervocalic (between two vowels). There are plenty of acoustic studies that confirm this. But the devoiced sound will still sound different from a "pure" voiceless sound because voicing (i.e. vibration of the vocal folds) is only one of the phonetic cues that distinguish between the so-called voiced and voiceless sounds, which in English are more accurately described as lenis and fortis. Still, there is usually little or no vibration in /z/ at the end of words.
> 
> In fact, native speakers will devoice obstruents in most contexts. Few people (and teachers) know this and those students who carefully follow their teacher's instruction to mark plurals with /z/ end up over-pronouncing them. But most learners will devoice the sound anyway, since there is a universal tendency across languages to devoice obstruents.
> 
> Edit: Some speakers will retain full voicing, of course.


What distinguishes /z/ from /s/ at the end of a word is how the sound in question begins, not how it ends. If a word seems to end in [zs], you could say the /z/ is partially devoiced, but we consider it still a /z/, not an /s/. Put another way, an /s/ in English is unvoiced from beginning to end, but a /z/ is not.

The rule "When _-s_ is added to a singular noun to make it plural or to a present tense verb to make it 3rd person singular, it is pronounced /z/" is not something we natives learn in school, and most native English speakers have never heard of any such rule. We just pronounce such words the way we have always heard them.

This rule is in fact an accurate description of how native English speakers pronounce the morpheme in question, not something we are taught as "correct".


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## Loob




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## cointi

Forero said:


> What distinguishes /z/ from /s/ at the end of a word is how the sound in question begins, not how it ends. If a word seems to end in [zs], you could say the /z/ is partially devoiced, but we consider it still a /z/, not an /s/. Put another way, an /s/ in English is unvoiced from beginning to end, but a /z/ is not..



Yes, partial devoicing.



Forero said:


> The rule "When _-s_ is added to a singular noun to make it plural or to a present tense verb to make it 3rd person singular, it is pronounced /z/" is not something we natives learn in school, and most native English speakers have never heard of any such rule. We just pronounce such words the way we have always heard them.



Of course, I was talking about the rule for learners.



Forero said:


> This rule is in fact an accurate description of how native English speakers pronounce the morpheme in question, not something we are taught as "correct".



Some speakers will retain full voicing, some will devoice partially, surprisingly many will devoice fully  (no phonation present). A lot depends on the immediate phonetic context and other factors. The sound is rarely fully voiced (normally only between two voiced sounds). *Given that, is the rule an accurate description of how native speakers pronounce obstruents? Not really.*


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## Loob

cointi said:


> *Given that, is the rule an accurate description of how native speakers pronounce obstruents? Not really.*


To be honest, I don't care whether it is or not


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## Glenfarclas

cointi said:


> surprisingly many will devoice fully (no phonation present)



That's weird: I've certainly never met such or person, seen him on TV, or heard him on the radio.


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## cointi

Glenfarclas said:


> That's weird: I've certainly never met such or person, seen him on TV, or heard him on the radio.



I'm not surprised to hear that. See post #14, gvergara did a good job explaining why.


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## Loob

_To repeat_: You stick with your view, cointi, I'll stick with mine.

It really isn't a question of what acoustic analyses may show. It's a question of the best advice to give to learners.


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## cointi

Loob said:


> _To repeat_: You stick with your view, cointi, I'll stick with mine.
> 
> It really isn't a question of what acoustic analyses may show. It's a question of the best advice to give to learners.



Yes, and there is no great harm in sticking with the "/z/ after voiced sounds" rule. It is useful, even if this is not how most native speakers realize this morpheme in real life.


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## Loob

Thanks, cointi


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## Forero

cointi said:


> Some speakers will retain full voicing, some will devoice partially, surprisingly many will devoice fully  (no phonation present). A lot depends on the immediate phonetic context and other factors. The sound is rarely fully voiced (normally only between two voiced sounds). *Given that, is the rule an accurate description of how native speakers pronounce obstruents? Not really.*


Native speakers who retain full voicing all the way to the end of a final /z/ are rare to nonexistent, but if an English noun ends in a vowel sound in the singular and _-s_ is added to make it plural, that _-s_ will be pronounced by all native English speakers as /z/, voiced at least at the beginning, no matter what follows, and even if nothing follows.





cointi said:


> Yes, and there is no great harm in sticking with the "/z/ after voiced sounds" rule. It is useful, even if this is not how mst native speakers realize this morpheme in real life.


Don't expect to be readily understood by us natives if you say "bus" when you mean "buzz", "race" when you mean "rays", "ice" when you mean "eyes", or even the nonexistent word "casselce" when you mean "castles".

You may describe the sounds differently, but in real life, an /s/ sound will not do as substitute for a /z/ sound because they are two different sounds: /z/ is singable, /s/ is not.


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## cointi

Forero said:


> but if an English noun ends in a vowel sound in the singular and _-s_ is added to make it plural, that _-s_ will be pronounced by all native English speakers as /z/, voiced at least at the beginning, no matter what follows, and even if nothing follows.



May I know what you base your belief on? Have you recorded native speakers and analyzed the spectrograms? Have you seen such spectrograms? Was the voice bar present? What about the waveform, did you see the periodicity?

I have seen such spectrograms, I include one of them below:

Source: Gonet, Święciński, More on The Voicing of English Obstruents: Voicing Retention vs Voicing Loss, Research in Language, 2012, vol 10.2


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## Forero

cointi said:


> May I know what you base your belief on? Have you recorded native speakers and analyzed the spectrograms? Have you seen such spectrograms? Was the voice bar present? What about the waveform, did you see the periodicity?
> 
> I have seen such spectrograms, I include one of them below:
> 
> Source: Gonet, Święciński, More on The Voicing of English Obstruents: Voicing Retention vs Voicing Loss, Research in Language, 2012, vol 10.2


Thank you for providing the spectrogram.

We should probably work on this via private messages until we get on the same page.


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## Forero

cointi said:


> I'm not surprised to hear that. See post #14, gvergara did a good job explaining why.


#14 is about a distinction between one "b" sound and another, something that is not phonemic but which can be heard by the speaker himself on closer examination.

But we are talking about a distinction between two phonemes, /s/ and /z/, that we natives all hear. For example, "buzz" pronounced by a native never sounds like "bus" to another native.

We natives are in agreement about the fact that the -s ending on words like "rays", "knees", "eyes", and "toes" is pronounced consistently as a /z/, not an /s/, even though it is spelled with an "s". We were not taught the -s ending "should" be pronounced this way on these words: it is just the way we all do it.

On closer examination, we can hear that the last part of the /z/ sound at the end of words like "buzz" and "knees" can be like an /s/, but the first part of it remains a distinguishable /z/, not an /s/.

We are talking here about spoken language sounds generated by a person's vocal tract (throat, tongue, mouth, sometimes nose, etc.) and heard by a person's ears. A sound spectrogram is an artificially produced "picture" of those sounds, undoubtedly a useful tool, but its usefulness in the teaching of spoken language is of necessity limited to the extent to which it shows what we can hear.


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## cointi

In order to clear things up a bit, I'm about to share some facts. Read at your own risk, as discomfort may occur.

1. In English, *the voicing itself is not the most important cue in the voiced-voiceless contrast*.
2. There are many other, more important (both in production and perception) cues.
3. *In the word-final position discussed here the most important cue is the length of the preceding vowel.*
4. *The vowel is shorter between voiceless sounds and longer between voiced sounds.*
5. The difference between, say, 'bag' and' back' is that the vowel in 'bag' is longer.
6. There are other cues, but the vowel length is so important, it usually overrides them.
7. *So much so that many speakers unknowingly completely devoice their /z/'s in certain environments. There is no trace of phonation there. The vowel length is enough.*
8. If you are a native speaker, you likely do this, which, I know, may be hard to accept.
9. If you alter the length of the preceding vowel in a lab (and *only* the length of the preceding vowel) *a native speaker of English will hear a different word (bag vs back), regardless of the voicing state of the last sound. The vowel length will be the most important cue.* Numerous studies carried out at least since the 70s have confirmed this.
10. The above is not a conspiracy theory, it is pretty much the basics of English phonology and phonetics.


Where does it leave us? *Learners should probably pay at least as much attention to the preceding vowel length as they pay to pronouncing the plural morpheme as /z/ or /s/.* *For native speakers, it is the vowel length that matters most, even though most don't realize it.

*


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## natkretep

I accept that /z/ can be devoiced, and things like the lack of aspiration might also be significant. However, as you say, the vowel length is still longer. And furthermore native speakers _think_ they are voicing their /z/ sounds. _Raze_ will still sound different from _race_.

My advice to learners is the opposite and to say that you should use /z/ unless it is difficult to do so (because the previous consonant is voiceless). Therefore tɪpz -> tɪps


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## Forero

cointi said:


> In order to clear things up a bit, I'm about to share some facts. Read at your own risk, as discomfort may occur.
> 
> 1. In English, *the voicing itself is not the most important cue in the voiced-voiceless contrast*.
> 2. There are many other, more important (both in production and perception) cues.


1 and 2 may be true for certain definitions of "voicing", but it is important to specify which definition you are using for "voicing itself".





> 3. *In the word-final position discussed here the most important cue is the length of the preceding vowel.*


This is not true for all native speakers. It may not even be true for most.





> 4. *The vowel is shorter between voiceless sounds and longer between voiced sounds.*


This seems to be true most of the time.





> 5. The difference between, say, 'bag' and' back' is that the vowel in 'bag' is longer.


This is overgeneralizing.





> 6. There are other cues, but the vowel length is so important, it usually overrides them.
> 7. *So much so that many speakers unknowingly completely devoice their /z/'s in certain environments. There is no trace of phonation there. The vowel length is enough.*


There may be some truth in this, depending on how you define "phonation" and "trace". I don't really know. But vowel length (as I understand it) is not enough.





> 8. If you are a native speaker, you likely do this, which, I know, may be hard to accept.


Again definitions are key, and I may indeed voice my final /z/s less than I think I do. A proper experiment would be needed to tell for sure.





> 9. If you alter the length of the preceding vowel in a lab (and *only* the length of the preceding vowel) *a native speaker of English will hear a different word (bag vs back), regardless of the voicing state of the last sound. The vowel length will be the most important cue.*


I dispute this. Vowel length seems to be important as a redundancy check, but it is not the most important cue. I have done some experiments, and Berndf on WR has had me listen to sound samples he has altered, and changing vowel length does not make me hear a "d" as a "t" or a "t" as a "d". And I don't think I am alone in my listening skills.

In fact, one native AmE speaker's usual vowel length for "bag" may be shorter than another's usual vowel length for "back". And don't overlook vowel quality and degree of diphthongization.

I do wonder how many natives your statement may apply to.





> Numerous studies carried out at least since the 70s have confirmed this.
> 10. The above is not a conspiracy theory, it is pretty much the basics of English phonology and phonetics.


How could it possibly be a conspiracy theory? What would the motivation be?

Can you point us to any such studies on native English speakers done by native English speakers?





> Where does it leave us? *Learners should probably pay at least as much attention to the preceding vowel length as they pay to pronouncing the plural morpheme as /z/ or /s/.* *For native speakers, it is the vowel length that matters most, even though most don't realize it.*


I think it is good to point out that relative vowel length for the same vowel pronounced by the same speaker in the same environment tends to reflect whether what follows is voiced or unvoiced, but this is an indirect and inexact way to distinguish voiced from unvoiced, and it does not help the non-native learn to reproduce words meant to be understandable by natives.

This too is neither a conspiracy nor a conspiracy theory. I propose you do your own experiment with native English speakers and see for yourself.

If we really did pronounce all these plurals with "s", then teaching plurals to non-natives would be just that much easier. We have no motivation to make the matter more complicated than it needs to be.


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## cointi

natkretep said:


> I accept that /z/ can be devoiced, and things like the lack of aspiration might also be significant. However, as you say, the vowel length is still longer. And furthermore native speakers _think_ they are voicing their /z/ sounds. _Raze_ will still sound different from _race_.







natkretep said:


> My advice to learners is the opposite and to say that you should use /z/ unless it is difficult to do so (because the previous consonant is voiceless). Therefore tɪpz -> tɪps



I know of no research confirming either of the approaches to be more effective, and I see how both could work. Would you discourage learners from clipping their vowels, though?


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## entangledbank

Of course learners should know about the length difference (which I often explained in this forum is the most significant difference), but you take just as great a risk concentrating on that. A learner coming from a language like Spanish or Greek or your own Polish, with few vowel distinctions, has to learn the _sit ~ seat_ distinctions of both quality and length. This is difficult enough for a vowel-poor learner, without then adding the _sit ~ Sid_ and (overlapping uncertainly) _seat ~ seed_ length distinctions.

Teaching that the 'voiced' phonemes /b d g z/ actually _are_ voiceless finally (_in pausa_) is wrong in two ways. First, a completely voiced pronunciation does not sound odd. A speaker who could do this (coming from French, for example) would make good English sounds. Agreed, they often/usually are partly/wholly devoiced, but this is English, not Icelandic or German. The devoicing is not obligatory. The second problem with saying that final /z/ is [ s] is that languages like Polish, German, and Dutch wholly neutralize the two phonemes there. English doesn't, so you can't advise people to use their /s/ for English /z/. A speaker of one of those languages isn't saved any trouble by learning that the sound is not 'really' voiced. They still have to make distinctions in English that their own language doesn't.


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## cointi

entangledbank said:


> Of course learners should know about the length difference (which I often explained in this forum is the most significant difference), but you take just as great a risk concentrating on that. A learner coming from a language like Spanish or Greek or your own Polish, with few vowel distinctions, has to learn the _sit ~ seat_ distinctions of both quality and length. This is difficult enough for a vowel-poor learner, without then adding the _sit ~ Sid_ and (overlapping uncertainly) _seat ~ seed_ length distinctions.
> 
> Teaching that the 'voiced' phonemes /b d g z/ actually _are_ voiceless finally (_in pausa_) is wrong in two ways. First, a completely voiced pronunciation does not sound odd. A speaker who could do this (coming from French, for example) would make good English sounds. Agreed, they often/usually are partly/wholly devoiced, but this is English, not Icelandic or German. The devoicing is not obligatory. The second problem with saying that final /z/ is [ s] is that languages like Polish, German, and Dutch wholly neutralize the two phonemes there. English doesn't, so you can't advise people to use their /s/ for English /z/. A speaker of one of those languages isn't saved any trouble by learning that the sound is not 'really' voiced. They still have to make distinctions in English that their own language doesn't.



Note please that I have never suggested what you suggest I have suggested.
If anything, I have suggested learning how to partially devoice sounds in order not to sound somewhat fake. Fully voiced sounds are statistically rare.

All I am arguing is that final consonants can be fully devoiced.


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## entangledbank

I can't find the lemma 'suggest' in what I wrote, so I don't think I said you suggested what you say I suggested you suggested, though of course I might have _suggested_ it.

I agree they can be fully devoiced. I'm no teacher and don't know what the best practical method would be. I can guess, but it's only guessing. For a simple course, like a teach-yourself book, just use [z] and [d] whenever /z/ and /d/ come up, and don't mention phonetic complications. All teach-yourself books lie about phonetics. (It annoys me no end when I actually need to learn from them.) This would get the beginner by; they would sound adequate. At an intermediate level, learners do need to learn about optional devoicing and the length difference, or they won't sound anything like native. But to actually put that into practice, the instruction would have to be strongly tailored to their own source language.


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## Forero

entangledbank said:


> I can't find the lemma 'suggest' in what I wrote, so I don't think I said you suggested what you say I suggested you suggested, though of course I might have _suggested_ it.
> 
> I agree they can be fully devoiced. I'm no teacher and don't know what the best practical method would be. I can guess, but it's only guessing. For a simple course, like a teach-yourself book, just use [z] and [d] whenever /z/ and /d/ come up, and don't mention phonetic complications. All teach-yourself books lie about phonetics. (It annoys me no end when I actually need to learn from them.) This would get the beginner by; they would sound adequate. At an intermediate level, learners do need to learn about optional devoicing and the length difference, or they won't sound anything like native. But to actually put that into practice, the instruction would have to be strongly tailored to their own source language.


I have heard lots of non-natives use [ s] where [z] is needed, but I have never heard a non-native pronounce a /z/ with too much voicing and no spurious final vowel. Have you?

Is a "fully devoiced" [z] the same as an [ s], or is it something else?


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## entangledbank

No, I've never heard a foreigner sound foreign by using fully voiced phones. If it were to happen, it would happen in French and Italian accents (non-finally), and I've never noticed that.

Many phonetic descriptions will use a devoicing symbol (the circle) under voiced sounds to indicate a sound that is not simply voiceless. If they try to explain, it is usually with the words 'fortis' and 'lenis', and/or some vague mention of muscle tension. I've never read an adequate account of what they actually are, such that I could try them myself, so this is beyond my knowledge of phonetics.


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## Forero

entangledbank said:


> No, I've never heard a foreigner sound foreign by using fully voiced phones. If it were to happen, it would happen in French and Italian accents (non-finally), and I've never noticed that.
> 
> Many phonetic descriptions will use a devoicing symbol (the circle) under voiced sounds to indicate a sound that is not simply voiceless. If they try to explain, it is usually with the words 'fortis' and 'lenis', and/or some vague mention of muscle tension. I've never read an adequate account of what they actually are, such that I could try them myself, so this is beyond my knowledge of phonetics.


Thank you, ETB.

This matches my experience.


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## cointi

entangledbank said:


> I agree they can be fully devoiced. I'm no teacher and don't know what the best practical method would be. I can guess, but it's only guessing. For a simple course, like a teach-yourself book, just use [z] and [d] whenever /z/ and /d/ come up, and don't mention phonetic complications. All teach-yourself books lie about phonetics. (It annoys me no end when I actually need to learn from them.) This would get the beginner by; they would sound adequate. At an intermediate level, learners do need to learn about optional devoicing and the length difference, or they won't sound anything like native. But to actually put that into practice, the instruction would have to be strongly tailored to their own source language.



Yes, I would say this a good solution that balances accuracy and practicality.




entangledbank said:


> No, I've never heard a foreigner sound foreign by using fully voiced phones. If it were to happen, it would happen in French and Italian accents (non-finally), and I've never noticed that.
> 
> Many phonetic descriptions will use a devoicing symbol (the circle) under voiced sounds to indicate a sound that is not simply voiceless. If they try to explain, it is usually with the words 'fortis' and 'lenis', and/or some vague mention of muscle tension. I've never read an adequate account of what they actually are, such that I could try them myself, so this is beyond my knowledge of phonetics.



You don't have to "try" them, I bet you produce them all the time. In most environments fully voiced sounds would sound unnatural. They would technically be correct (or not incorrect), as you have pointed out earlier, but I assure you that fully voicing your obstruents would get you a lot of funny looks.

In fact, *good* pronunciation books teach learners not to fully voice obstruents for the same reason.


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## Forero

cointi said:


> You don't have to "try" them, I bet you produce them all the time. In most environments fully voiced sounds would sound unnatural. They would technically be correct (or not incorrect), as you have pointed out earlier, but I assure you that fully voicing your obstruents would get you a lot of funny looks.


If this is true, then "fully voiced" must not mean what I think it means. Do you have an example recording of a word pronounced with a fully voiced obstruent that sounds unnatural to you?


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## cointi

Forero said:


> If this is true, then "fully voiced" must not mean what I think it means. Do you have an example recording of a word pronounced with a fully voiced obstruent that sounds unnatural to you?



I don't. They are not easy to come across because most native speakers normally don't produce them in devoicing-favoring environments.

Note also, that any speaker could easily get away with fully voicing an obstruent (in a devoicing-favoring environment) if they did it once or twice. Similarly, if you used an end-of-the-word unaspirated 't' in 'table' (where it should be aspirated), there is a chance no one would notice. But if you consistently used unaspirated 't's at the beginning of words, then you would sound funny and your 'ticks' might sound like 'dicks' to native speakers, as aspiration is a powerful voicing cue in English.


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## Forero

cointi said:


> I don't. They are not easy to come across because most native speakers normally don't produce them in devoicing-favoring environments.
> 
> Note also, that any speaker could easily get away with fully voicing an obstruent (in a devoicing-favoring environment) if they did it once or twice. Similarly, if you used an end-of-the-word unaspirated 't' in 'table' (where it should be aspirated), there is a chance no one would notice. But if you consistently used unaspirated 't's at the beginning of words, then you would sound funny and your 'ticks' might sound like 'dicks' to native speakers, as aspiration is a powerful voicing cue in English.


It seems to me that if almost all native speakers automatically "devoice" final voiced consonants in all words that have them in all languages that use them, and if those native speakers never notice such "devoicing", then there is no reason to teach it to non-natives because (1) no one will notice and (2) it will be automatic for them too.

No reason, that is, except that it is interesting to those of us who are curious about such things.

(An end-of-the-word unaspirated "t" in my dialect is unreleased and marks the end of a syllable, so "table" pronounced with such a "t" will sound like "-t able" and will surely be noticed. On the other hand, an unaspirated "t" that is released into a vowel, such as the "t" in "stake", can be used initially and sounds like a French or Dutch "t" and similar to a Spanish "t". That, too, will be noticed because it sounds "foreign" or odd. And it does not sound quite like a "d", so a naïve native English speaker might confuse it with a "d" temporarily, but exposure to it in "t-" words quickly teaches any native speaker that it is surely not meant as a "d".)


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## cointi

Forero said:


> It seems to me that if almost all native speakers automatically "devoice" final voiced consonants in all words that have them in all languages that use them, and if those native speakers never notice "devoicing" in any environment (so it obviously does not change a voiced consonant into an unvoiced one since the difference is phonemic), then there is no reason to teach it to non-natives because (1) no one will notice and (2) it will be automatic for them too.



I meant native speakers of English, of course, not every possible language.

In practice the learners whose native languages neutralize obstruents word-finally (e.g. German or Polish) are sometimes (too often, I'm afraid) told to counteract this feature by voicing their consonants. Those students who diligently follow their teacher's advice end up over-pronouncing obstruents.

Native speakers of English don't notice full voicing because they rarely hear it (there are not that many diligent students) and if they speak with non-natives, they just interpret them differently. They expect things to be off in their pronunciation. But if someone in your family suddenly started to voice their obstruents, I think you would notice.

Fortunately, as I mentioned, good books (and teachers) will ask students to learn partial devoicing.



Forero said:


> (An end-of-the-word unaspirated "t" in my dialect is unreleased and marks the end of a syllable, so "table" pronounced with such a "t" will sound like "-t able" and will surely be noticed. On the other hand, an unaspirated "t" that is released into a vowel, such as the "t" in "stake", can be used initially and sounds like a French or Dutch "t" and similar to a Spanish "t". That, too, will be noticed because it sounds "foreign" or odd. And it does not sound quite like a "d", so a naïve native English speaker might confuse it with a "d" temporarily, but exposure to it in "t-" words quickly teaches any native speaker that it is surely not meant as a "d".)



Good point, I should have been more specific. I meant the 't' with a normal burst, which I know is rather rare in colloquial speech. I don't think it would be noticed in a conversation if it was a one-time event. Not by most speakers.

Well yes, if natives speakers of English couldn't learn quickly how to interpret those non-native unaspirated consonants, life would be much more difficult.


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