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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Nov 3.
Published in final edited form as: Lang Learn Dev. 2008 Apr 1;4(2):122–156. doi: 10.1080/15475440801922115

Table 2.

Distribution of lingual obstruents in the four languages.

consonant type: Cantonese1 English2 Greek3 Japanese4
stops /t, th, k, kh/ /d, th, ɡ, kh/ /d, t, ɡj, kj, ɡ, k/ /d, t, ɡj, kj, ɡ, k/
fricatives /s/ ð, θ, z, ʒ, s, ∫/ /ð, θ, z, s, ʐ, ç, ɣ, x/ /s, ∫, ç/
affricates /ts, tsh/ /dʒ, t∫/ /dz, ts/ /dz, ts, dʒ, t∫/
1

Notes: Cantonese: The phonation type contrast is between voiceless unaspirated plosives and aspirated plosives, and the coronal stops and fricative are more dental than alveolar. Dentals are not attested before /u/.

2

English: The phonation type contrast in word-initial position is between “voiced” plosives with a short lag VOT (or, sometimes, voicing lead) and voiceless aspirated plosives, and the coronal stops and fricatives are alveolar.

3

Greek: The voicing contrast is between a voiced (or sometimes prenasalized) stop with a voicing lead and a voiceless unaspirated stop. Dorsal stops and fricatives are palatalized before front vowels.

4

Japanese: The phonation type contrast is between voiced plosives with voicing lead (or, sometimes, a short lag VOT) and mildly aspirated plosives with VOT values intermediate between those for the short lag unaspirated plosives and those for the long lag aspirated plosives of Cantonese and English. Dorsal stops are palatalized before front vowels. The voiced affricates [dz] and [dʒ] are word-initial allophones of phonemes which are typically realized as fricatives [z] and [ʒ] in word-medial position. The sequences */tu/ and */si/ are unattested and /ti/, /∫e/ and /t∫e/ are attested only marginally, primarily in recent loan words from languages such as English. The voiceless alveolar affricate is attested only in the sequence /tsu/.