Devoicingtriggered

Devoicingtriggered is a linguistic term used to describe a class of phonological phenomena in which a devoicing operation on a segment acts as a trigger for further changes in the voicing or phonation of surrounding segments. The term is not widely standardized and appears mainly in theoretical discussions and typological surveys rather than as a universally adopted label. In practice, researchers use it to describe patterns where devoicing in one position correlates with systematic changes in neighboring segments, such as voicing alterations in adjacent consonants, changes in vowel quality, or adjustments in segment duration or stress conditioned by a devoicing context.

Possible mechanisms include coarticulation effects, where a devoiced consonant influences the manner of articulation of nearby vowels or consonants, or phonological rules in which devoicing serves as a trigger for a subsequent process in the phonological structure. Because the phenomenon can be language- and theory-dependent, definitions of devoicingtriggered vary across studies.

Illustrative examples are cross-linguistic patterns where coda devoicing in one language affects the behavior of adjacent vowels or later consonants, or where determining the voicing of a segment relies on the voicing of a neighboring segment. The term is primarily used as a descriptive label rather than a claim about a universal feature of human language.

See also: voicing, devoicing, coda, assimilation, phonology, coarticulation.