About pronouncing the 's' in plural nouns Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara Planned maintenance scheduled April 23, 2019 at 23:30 UTC (7:30pm US/Eastern)Are pens and pence homophones?Final /s/ vs /z/ sound at the end of verbs/nouns issueAre “whores” and “horse” homophones?The pronunciation of ending “s”Why is “wassup” pronounced /ˈwɒsʌp/ but /ˈwɒzʌp/?Why does the 3rd-person of verbs that end in -y follow the rule for plural nouns instead of verbs?How do you pronounce “fifths”?Is there any convention for pronouncing proper nouns?“The Netherlands are” vs “The Netherlands is”The pronunciation of ending “s”L in the middle of a word: dark l or light l?Why are there no English nouns starting with “th” pronounced as /ð/?how to differentiate -is from -es sound sing/plur?Pronounciation of “with”How are plural forms like “status” pronounced?
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About pronouncing the 's' in plural nouns
Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara
Planned maintenance scheduled April 23, 2019 at 23:30 UTC (7:30pm US/Eastern)Are pens and pence homophones?Final /s/ vs /z/ sound at the end of verbs/nouns issueAre “whores” and “horse” homophones?The pronunciation of ending “s”Why is “wassup” pronounced /ˈwɒsʌp/ but /ˈwɒzʌp/?Why does the 3rd-person of verbs that end in -y follow the rule for plural nouns instead of verbs?How do you pronounce “fifths”?Is there any convention for pronouncing proper nouns?“The Netherlands are” vs “The Netherlands is”The pronunciation of ending “s”L in the middle of a word: dark l or light l?Why are there no English nouns starting with “th” pronounced as /ð/?how to differentiate -is from -es sound sing/plur?Pronounciation of “with”How are plural forms like “status” pronounced?
.everyoneloves__top-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__mid-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__bot-mid-leaderboard:empty margin-bottom:0;
A general rule of English pronunciation states that the 's' in plural nouns is to be pronounced as /z/ if it is preceded by a 'voiced consonant' such as /n/ or /g/, and as /s/ if it is preceded by a 'voiceless consonant' such as /t/ or /p/.
Therefore, "pens" is pronounced as /penz/ and "cats" is pronounced as /cats/.
Now my question is, do native speakers of English always follow this rule? Secondly, and this is what I really need to understand, does this rule apply also to the 's' in the verbs of 'third person singular subjects'?
grammatical-number pronunciation phonology consonants
edited Dec 19 '12 at 15:16
tchrist♦
110k30296477
add a comment |
A general rule of English pronunciation states that the 's' in plural nouns is to be pronounced as /z/ if it is preceded by a 'voiced consonant' such as /n/ or /g/, and as /s/ if it is preceded by a 'voiceless consonant' such as /t/ or /p/.
Therefore, "pens" is pronounced as /penz/ and "cats" is pronounced as /cats/.
Now my question is, do native speakers of English always follow this rule? Secondly, and this is what I really need to understand, does this rule apply also to the 's' in the verbs of 'third person singular subjects'?
grammatical-number pronunciation phonology consonants
edited Dec 19 '12 at 15:16
tchrist♦
110k30296477
2
The important thing to understand is that we don't follow it as if it were a rule. We follow it because it sounds right.
– Robusto
Dec 19 '12 at 16:49
add a comment |
A general rule of English pronunciation states that the 's' in plural nouns is to be pronounced as /z/ if it is preceded by a 'voiced consonant' such as /n/ or /g/, and as /s/ if it is preceded by a 'voiceless consonant' such as /t/ or /p/.
Therefore, "pens" is pronounced as /penz/ and "cats" is pronounced as /cats/.
Now my question is, do native speakers of English always follow this rule? Secondly, and this is what I really need to understand, does this rule apply also to the 's' in the verbs of 'third person singular subjects'?
grammatical-number pronunciation phonology consonants
edited Dec 19 '12 at 15:16
tchrist♦
110k30296477
A general rule of English pronunciation states that the 's' in plural nouns is to be pronounced as /z/ if it is preceded by a 'voiced consonant' such as /n/ or /g/, and as /s/ if it is preceded by a 'voiceless consonant' such as /t/ or /p/.
Therefore, "pens" is pronounced as /penz/ and "cats" is pronounced as /cats/.
Now my question is, do native speakers of English always follow this rule? Secondly, and this is what I really need to understand, does this rule apply also to the 's' in the verbs of 'third person singular subjects'?
grammatical-number pronunciation phonology consonants
grammatical-number pronunciation phonology consonants
edited Dec 19 '12 at 15:16
tchrist♦
110k30296477
edited Dec 19 '12 at 15:16
tchrist♦
110k30296477
edited Dec 19 '12 at 15:16
tchrist♦
110k30296477
edited Dec 19 '12 at 15:16
tchrist♦
110k30296477
edited Dec 19 '12 at 15:16
tchrist♦
110k30296477
110k30296477
asked Dec 19 '12 at 13:04
user32480
2
The important thing to understand is that we don't follow it as if it were a rule. We follow it because it sounds right.
– Robusto
Dec 19 '12 at 16:49
add a comment |
2
The important thing to understand is that we don't follow it as if it were a rule. We follow it because it sounds right.
– Robusto
Dec 19 '12 at 16:49
2
2
The important thing to understand is that we don't follow it as if it were a rule. We follow it because it sounds right.
– Robusto
Dec 19 '12 at 16:49
The important thing to understand is that we don't follow it as if it were a rule. We follow it because it sounds right.
– Robusto
Dec 19 '12 at 16:49
add a comment |
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
Yes to both your questions.
Native speakers really do follow that “rule” as to whether being next to a vowel or a voiced consonant makes the -s suffix voiced as well, whereas being next to an unvoiced consonant makes the suffix also unvoiced.
And secondly, the same phonologic law is in operation when constructing a third-person singular verb.
You can also add a third class to that: forming possessives with apostrophe-s.
All three work the same soundwise.
answered Dec 19 '12 at 13:08
tchrist♦tchrist
110k30296477
Thank you for your response. I thought some native speakers did not always follow this rule as I heard them speak on TV and in films. Maybe, I should pay more attention the next time. But for now, I can at least teach my students to follow this rule.
– user32480
Dec 19 '12 at 13:27
5
Indeed. It's always bemused me that English, which has only nine inflectional morphemes left, uses exactly the same suffixes, with exactly the same allomorphy, for three of them. German can afford to overload /zi/, because it still has trainloads of inflections. But it's a mark of how little importance we place on inflectional morphology.
– John Lawler
Dec 19 '12 at 15:05
add a comment |
As far as I know, there are no notable groups of speakers that don't follow this rule phonologically: pens and pence, tens and tense have different pronunciations for all speakers with typical accents.
One thing that might be causing confusion is that the phoneme /z/ in English is not always fully phonetically voiced. A word like tens might be pronounced with a voiceless or partially voiceless fricative, but it still would sound distinct from tense because the vowel in ten and tens would be phonetically longer than the vowel in tense. For more details on this, see Are "whores" and "horse" homophones? and The pronunciation of ending "s".
For a fair number of English speakers, there is a merger in perception (possibly also in production, although I don't know if studies have shown whether it is a complete or partial merger) between /ns, ms/ and /nts, mps/ in many contexts, including word-finally. A smaller number of speakers may merge /ls/ with /lts/. I suppose that, if we analyze the merged pronunciation as containing the phoneme /t/, it would be formally possible to analyze the tens/tense contrast as a phonemic contrast of /ns/ vs. /nts/, but I don't think that would be a very convincing analysis.
I haven't heard of any English speakers merging /rs/ with /rts/.
answered Nov 17 '18 at 2:19
sumelicsumelic
50.7k8121228
add a comment |
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2 Answers
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2 Answers
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votes
Yes to both your questions.
Native speakers really do follow that “rule” as to whether being next to a vowel or a voiced consonant makes the -s suffix voiced as well, whereas being next to an unvoiced consonant makes the suffix also unvoiced.
And secondly, the same phonologic law is in operation when constructing a third-person singular verb.
You can also add a third class to that: forming possessives with apostrophe-s.
All three work the same soundwise.
answered Dec 19 '12 at 13:08
tchrist♦tchrist
110k30296477
Thank you for your response. I thought some native speakers did not always follow this rule as I heard them speak on TV and in films. Maybe, I should pay more attention the next time. But for now, I can at least teach my students to follow this rule.
– user32480
Dec 19 '12 at 13:27
5
Indeed. It's always bemused me that English, which has only nine inflectional morphemes left, uses exactly the same suffixes, with exactly the same allomorphy, for three of them. German can afford to overload /zi/, because it still has trainloads of inflections. But it's a mark of how little importance we place on inflectional morphology.
– John Lawler
Dec 19 '12 at 15:05
add a comment |
Yes to both your questions.
Native speakers really do follow that “rule” as to whether being next to a vowel or a voiced consonant makes the -s suffix voiced as well, whereas being next to an unvoiced consonant makes the suffix also unvoiced.
And secondly, the same phonologic law is in operation when constructing a third-person singular verb.
You can also add a third class to that: forming possessives with apostrophe-s.
All three work the same soundwise.
answered Dec 19 '12 at 13:08
tchrist♦tchrist
110k30296477
Thank you for your response. I thought some native speakers did not always follow this rule as I heard them speak on TV and in films. Maybe, I should pay more attention the next time. But for now, I can at least teach my students to follow this rule.
– user32480
Dec 19 '12 at 13:27
5
Indeed. It's always bemused me that English, which has only nine inflectional morphemes left, uses exactly the same suffixes, with exactly the same allomorphy, for three of them. German can afford to overload /zi/, because it still has trainloads of inflections. But it's a mark of how little importance we place on inflectional morphology.
– John Lawler
Dec 19 '12 at 15:05
add a comment |
Yes to both your questions.
Native speakers really do follow that “rule” as to whether being next to a vowel or a voiced consonant makes the -s suffix voiced as well, whereas being next to an unvoiced consonant makes the suffix also unvoiced.
And secondly, the same phonologic law is in operation when constructing a third-person singular verb.
You can also add a third class to that: forming possessives with apostrophe-s.
All three work the same soundwise.
answered Dec 19 '12 at 13:08
tchrist♦tchrist
110k30296477
Yes to both your questions.
Native speakers really do follow that “rule” as to whether being next to a vowel or a voiced consonant makes the -s suffix voiced as well, whereas being next to an unvoiced consonant makes the suffix also unvoiced.
And secondly, the same phonologic law is in operation when constructing a third-person singular verb.
You can also add a third class to that: forming possessives with apostrophe-s.
All three work the same soundwise.
answered Dec 19 '12 at 13:08
tchrist♦tchrist
110k30296477
answered Dec 19 '12 at 13:08
tchrist♦tchrist
110k30296477
answered Dec 19 '12 at 13:08
tchrist♦tchrist
110k30296477
answered Dec 19 '12 at 13:08
tchrist♦tchrist
110k30296477
110k30296477
Thank you for your response. I thought some native speakers did not always follow this rule as I heard them speak on TV and in films. Maybe, I should pay more attention the next time. But for now, I can at least teach my students to follow this rule.
– user32480
Dec 19 '12 at 13:27
5
Indeed. It's always bemused me that English, which has only nine inflectional morphemes left, uses exactly the same suffixes, with exactly the same allomorphy, for three of them. German can afford to overload /zi/, because it still has trainloads of inflections. But it's a mark of how little importance we place on inflectional morphology.
– John Lawler
Dec 19 '12 at 15:05
add a comment |
Thank you for your response. I thought some native speakers did not always follow this rule as I heard them speak on TV and in films. Maybe, I should pay more attention the next time. But for now, I can at least teach my students to follow this rule.
– user32480
Dec 19 '12 at 13:27
5
Indeed. It's always bemused me that English, which has only nine inflectional morphemes left, uses exactly the same suffixes, with exactly the same allomorphy, for three of them. German can afford to overload /zi/, because it still has trainloads of inflections. But it's a mark of how little importance we place on inflectional morphology.
– John Lawler
Dec 19 '12 at 15:05
Thank you for your response. I thought some native speakers did not always follow this rule as I heard them speak on TV and in films. Maybe, I should pay more attention the next time. But for now, I can at least teach my students to follow this rule.
– user32480
Dec 19 '12 at 13:27
Thank you for your response. I thought some native speakers did not always follow this rule as I heard them speak on TV and in films. Maybe, I should pay more attention the next time. But for now, I can at least teach my students to follow this rule.
– user32480
Dec 19 '12 at 13:27
5
5
Indeed. It's always bemused me that English, which has only nine inflectional morphemes left, uses exactly the same suffixes, with exactly the same allomorphy, for three of them. German can afford to overload /zi/, because it still has trainloads of inflections. But it's a mark of how little importance we place on inflectional morphology.
– John Lawler
Dec 19 '12 at 15:05
Indeed. It's always bemused me that English, which has only nine inflectional morphemes left, uses exactly the same suffixes, with exactly the same allomorphy, for three of them. German can afford to overload /zi/, because it still has trainloads of inflections. But it's a mark of how little importance we place on inflectional morphology.
– John Lawler
Dec 19 '12 at 15:05
add a comment |
As far as I know, there are no notable groups of speakers that don't follow this rule phonologically: pens and pence, tens and tense have different pronunciations for all speakers with typical accents.
One thing that might be causing confusion is that the phoneme /z/ in English is not always fully phonetically voiced. A word like tens might be pronounced with a voiceless or partially voiceless fricative, but it still would sound distinct from tense because the vowel in ten and tens would be phonetically longer than the vowel in tense. For more details on this, see Are "whores" and "horse" homophones? and The pronunciation of ending "s".
For a fair number of English speakers, there is a merger in perception (possibly also in production, although I don't know if studies have shown whether it is a complete or partial merger) between /ns, ms/ and /nts, mps/ in many contexts, including word-finally. A smaller number of speakers may merge /ls/ with /lts/. I suppose that, if we analyze the merged pronunciation as containing the phoneme /t/, it would be formally possible to analyze the tens/tense contrast as a phonemic contrast of /ns/ vs. /nts/, but I don't think that would be a very convincing analysis.
I haven't heard of any English speakers merging /rs/ with /rts/.
answered Nov 17 '18 at 2:19
sumelicsumelic
50.7k8121228
add a comment |
As far as I know, there are no notable groups of speakers that don't follow this rule phonologically: pens and pence, tens and tense have different pronunciations for all speakers with typical accents.
One thing that might be causing confusion is that the phoneme /z/ in English is not always fully phonetically voiced. A word like tens might be pronounced with a voiceless or partially voiceless fricative, but it still would sound distinct from tense because the vowel in ten and tens would be phonetically longer than the vowel in tense. For more details on this, see Are "whores" and "horse" homophones? and The pronunciation of ending "s".
For a fair number of English speakers, there is a merger in perception (possibly also in production, although I don't know if studies have shown whether it is a complete or partial merger) between /ns, ms/ and /nts, mps/ in many contexts, including word-finally. A smaller number of speakers may merge /ls/ with /lts/. I suppose that, if we analyze the merged pronunciation as containing the phoneme /t/, it would be formally possible to analyze the tens/tense contrast as a phonemic contrast of /ns/ vs. /nts/, but I don't think that would be a very convincing analysis.
I haven't heard of any English speakers merging /rs/ with /rts/.
answered Nov 17 '18 at 2:19
sumelicsumelic
50.7k8121228
add a comment |
As far as I know, there are no notable groups of speakers that don't follow this rule phonologically: pens and pence, tens and tense have different pronunciations for all speakers with typical accents.
One thing that might be causing confusion is that the phoneme /z/ in English is not always fully phonetically voiced. A word like tens might be pronounced with a voiceless or partially voiceless fricative, but it still would sound distinct from tense because the vowel in ten and tens would be phonetically longer than the vowel in tense. For more details on this, see Are "whores" and "horse" homophones? and The pronunciation of ending "s".
For a fair number of English speakers, there is a merger in perception (possibly also in production, although I don't know if studies have shown whether it is a complete or partial merger) between /ns, ms/ and /nts, mps/ in many contexts, including word-finally. A smaller number of speakers may merge /ls/ with /lts/. I suppose that, if we analyze the merged pronunciation as containing the phoneme /t/, it would be formally possible to analyze the tens/tense contrast as a phonemic contrast of /ns/ vs. /nts/, but I don't think that would be a very convincing analysis.
I haven't heard of any English speakers merging /rs/ with /rts/.
answered Nov 17 '18 at 2:19
sumelicsumelic
50.7k8121228
As far as I know, there are no notable groups of speakers that don't follow this rule phonologically: pens and pence, tens and tense have different pronunciations for all speakers with typical accents.
One thing that might be causing confusion is that the phoneme /z/ in English is not always fully phonetically voiced. A word like tens might be pronounced with a voiceless or partially voiceless fricative, but it still would sound distinct from tense because the vowel in ten and tens would be phonetically longer than the vowel in tense. For more details on this, see Are "whores" and "horse" homophones? and The pronunciation of ending "s".
For a fair number of English speakers, there is a merger in perception (possibly also in production, although I don't know if studies have shown whether it is a complete or partial merger) between /ns, ms/ and /nts, mps/ in many contexts, including word-finally. A smaller number of speakers may merge /ls/ with /lts/. I suppose that, if we analyze the merged pronunciation as containing the phoneme /t/, it would be formally possible to analyze the tens/tense contrast as a phonemic contrast of /ns/ vs. /nts/, but I don't think that would be a very convincing analysis.
I haven't heard of any English speakers merging /rs/ with /rts/.
answered Nov 17 '18 at 2:19
sumelicsumelic
50.7k8121228
edited 10 mins ago
answered Nov 17 '18 at 2:19
sumelicsumelic
50.7k8121228
answered Nov 17 '18 at 2:19
sumelicsumelic
50.7k8121228
answered Nov 17 '18 at 2:19
sumelicsumelic
50.7k8121228
50.7k8121228
add a comment |
add a comment |
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2
The important thing to understand is that we don't follow it as if it were a rule. We follow it because it sounds right.
– Robusto
Dec 19 '12 at 16:49