Aspiration. It's all about persbective.

A friend of mine recently told the story (on her own web log) about teaching her ESL class. For some reason she thought it appropriate to teach them the word "supercalifragilisticexbealidocious." At the very least this word can generate an interesting discussion of what makes a word a word. Would we consider this a lexeme? What is semantic content to this word? I'm pretty sure it's an adjective. And it probably means something like "super." I can't remember the lyrics of that part of Mary Poppins but I remember the tune clearly. It gives me headache. Is there a lyric something like 'lumdiddle-iddle' in there?

So what makes this of interest to me is my friend's admission that she doesn't know how the word is spelled but when her students asked her to write it out for them she chose to spell it "supercalifragilisticexbealidocious." And sure. It works. I knew what word she meant when I read it.

But it's not the spelling I would have used. There's a letter sequence in there that I noticed when I read it: the "xbe". My guess would have chosen "kspi" for that sequence. Why do she and I see that sequence differently? Because I'm a big believer in onset maximization. To say it as simply as I know how...

In English, when stops are the initial sound in a word, they are aspirated. There's a slight puff of air audible right after the release. When an 's' comes before the stop there is no puff of air. (Well -- it's less audible.) Compare the following:

The /p/ in pin and spin
The /k/ in kit and skit
The /t/ in tab and stab

Since English does not differentiate between an aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stop the +/- aspiration alternation is more likely seen as a voiceless/voiced alternation. That is, since voiced stops are not aspirated, an initial unaspirated voiceless stop sounds like a voiced stop.

Now consider the two spellings I suggested for our long word above. Her use of 'x' makes me think that she syllabified the 'ks' as a coda cluster. So her unaspirated bilabial stop sounded like a voiced bilabial stop because she analyzed the onset as a single consonant [...eks.bi.æ.lə...]. Analyzing the [s] as part of the coda she would have expected a [p] to be aspirated [...eks.p^hi.æ.lə...].

Because I love onset maximization I have just assumed that the syllabification is [...ek.spi.æ.lə...]. After the [s] an unaspirated [p] is what I'd expect.

After searching around I find that "xp" is probably the correct spelling. Even so...I syllabify "expert" with a maximized onset and an unaspirated [p].

A while ago on the ADS listserve there was discussion of a local pronunciation of "Wisconsin" heard by some as "Wisgonsin." Several people called attention to the aspiration alternation and suggested that it's primarily an alternation of syllabification. Where most will syllabify the word [wis.k^han.sən] some locals (and surely some non-locals as well) will syllabify it [wi.skan.sən]. Note the difference in aspiration.