Voicing for grammar

 

Voicing 

All sounds can be grouped into voiced or voiceless (or unvoiced). Voicing is concerned with the vibration of the vocal folds. To tell if a sound is voiced or voiceless, touch your throat gently. When you say a voiced sound, you can feel a vibration or buzzing in your throat. For example, when we say /z/, there is a vibration, but when we say /s/, there is no vibration. All vowels are voiced sounds. Sonorants are also voiced. Sonorants are nasals (/m/, /n/, and /ŋ/), liquids (/l/ and /r/), and semivowels (/w/ and /j/). Some obstruents are also voiced, which are /b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, /ð/, /z/, /ʒ/, and /dʒ/. The rest of the obstruents are voiceless: /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /θ/, /s/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/, and /h/. In fact, almost all obstruents have a pair of sounds that have an identical place and manner of articulation, but differ in voicing. These are the pairs that differ only in voicing: /b/ and/p/, /d/ and /t/, /g/ and /k/, /v/ and /f/, /ð/ and /θ/, /z/ and /s/, /ʒ/ and /ʃ/, and /dʒ/ and /tʃ/. Each pair sound is produced exactly the same way except for voicing. The voiceless sound /h/ has no voiced counterpart. 

Voicing for grammar

In the history of the English language, voicing was used for grammar purposes such as to change the part of speech and to make a plural noun form. Regarding the change of the part of speech, voicing can change a noun into a verb or an adjective into a verb. 

From noun to verb

These are examples where voicing was used to make a noun to a verb. 

 

From /f/ to /v/

belief – believe,

life – live,

proof – prove

strife – strive

thief – thieve

half - halve 

safe - save 

grief - grieve

 

From /θ/ to /ð/

bath - bathe

breath - breathe

mouth– mouthe (to move lips)

sheath - sheathe

wreath - wreathe

loath - loathe

teeth - teethe (for a baby to grow teeth)

From /s/ to /z/

abuse - abuse

house - house

misuse - misuse 

excuse - excuse 

use - use 

In the examples with “from /s/ to /z/”, the noun and verb forms have the same spelling, but differ in voicing. 

From adjective to verb

In the following examples, the adjective and verb forms have the same spelling, but differ in voicing. 

From /s/ to /z/

close (adj.) - close (v.) 

diffuse (adj.) - diffuse (v.) 

 

From singular to plural

Voicing was also used to make the plural noun forms, as these examples show: 

 

knife – knives

leaf – leaves

wife – wives

 

The following words in their singular forms end with the /θ/ sound. But in their plural forms, they can be pronounced either voiced /ðz/ or voiceless /θs/  For instance, ‘bath’ can be said either as /bæθs/ or as /bæðz/. These are such words:

bath - baths [θs],  baths [ðz] 

mouth - mouths [θs],  mouths [ðz]

oath - oaths [θs],  oaths[ðz]

path - paths [θs],  paths[ðz]

truth - truths[θs],  truths[ðz]

youth - youths [θs],  youths[ðz]