Voiced stops pronounced as their unaspirated voiceless counterparts


In [this Japanese song](https://youtu.be/hzcvm2UgVvo?t=1m6s), there is a line
saying:

> まる **で** 夢かま **ぼ** ろし

The /d/ in 「で」 and the /b/ in 「ぼ」 sound to me as if they (especially the /b/)
are pronounced as unaspirated /t/ and /p/ respectively.

Some possible explanations:

  1. I simply heard them wrong.
  2. The singer's pronunciation here is kind of unusual.
  3. People sometimes use unaspirated voiceless sounds instead of their voiced counterparts, even at **non-word-initial** positions ([an answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/21558/how-does-one-keep-from-being-confused-about-the-pronunciation-of-%E5%9C%B0%E4%B8%8B%E9%89%84/21568#21568) saying people do this at **word-initial** ).

Please kindly share your opinions!

* * *

added [a clearer clip](http://1drv.ms/1KiaEKp) of the line
([source](http://www.xiami.com/song/1769509693?spm=a1z1s.6659509.0.0.JISrN6))

Somehow, the /d/ in this clip sounds more unvoiced to me than the /d/ in the
youtube video above <@_@>




I think it's half #1, half #2.

When a singer (especially female) sings tenderly, some whispering (breathy)
feature tends to be blended into the voice, resulting in incomplete voicing.
It's a universal phenomenon. The whole phrase in your sound clip has
underlying breathing, so in some ways you're true, these are not true voiced
consonants.

What you hear at で or ぼ is what they call [slack
voice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_voice). Your vocal cords are set in
the position where you pronounce voiced consonants, but the vibration is less
than perfect, making a sound half voiced, half unvoiced. If you only focus on
VOT (or, if there is vibration during plosion), you may think it's unvoiced,
but you must also care about the sound quality, so that you'll notice it's
different (much "thicker") than ordinary unvoiced consonant, namely か in your
clip.

What's more, the singer properly tries to maintain glottal vibration till
right before those consonants, which makes the consonants of で and ぼ
effectively sound like //dt// and //bp//, unlike か's is just //kʰ//. But when
it comes to this point, で's "voicedness" is certainly quite weaker than ぼ, as
you observed.

[code]

    cons.    voice offset    voice onset
     で          80ms          50-70ms?
     か         200ms           100ms
     ぼ          10ms            10ms
    
[/code]

( _shoddily_ analyzed with Praat)




I think it's half #1, half #2.

When a singer (especially female) sings tenderly, some whispering (breathy)
feature tends to be blended into the voice, resulting in incomplete voicing.
It's a universal phenomenon. The whole phrase in your sound clip has
underlying breathing, so in some ways you're true, these are not true voiced
consonants.

What you hear at で or ぼ is what they call [slack
voice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_voice). Your vocal cords are set in
the position where you pronounce voiced consonants, but the vibration is less
than perfect, making a sound half voiced, half unvoiced. If you only focus on
VOT (or, if there is vibration during plosion), you may think it's unvoiced,
but you must also care about the sound quality, so that you'll notice it's
different (much "thicker") than ordinary unvoiced consonant, namely か in your
clip.

What's more, the singer properly tries to maintain glottal vibration till
right before those consonants, which makes the consonants of で and ぼ
effectively sound like //dt// and //bp//, unlike か's is just //kʰ//. But when
it comes to this point, で's "voicedness" is certainly quite weaker than ぼ, as
you observed.

[code]

    cons.    voice offset    voice onset
     で          80ms          50-70ms?
     か         200ms           100ms
     ぼ          10ms            10ms
    
[/code]

( _shoddily_ analyzed with Praat)

