aspirados

Aspirados, in phonetics often called aspirated consonants, are consonant sounds produced with a noticeable burst of breath following the release of the articulatory closure. The term is commonly used in Spanish-language phonetics as aspiradas or consonantes aspiradas, and in English texts as aspirated stops or aspirated consonants.

Articulatory and acoustic characteristics

Aspirated consonants are typically voiceless stops (such as p, t, k) that are released with a period of voiceless breath. This breathy release increases the audible energy following the closure and is measured acoustically as a positive voice onset time (VOT). The VOT for aspirated stops is longer than for unaspirated stops, and is shorter for many languages than for strongly aspirated sequences found in others. Not all stops in a language are aspirated; some languages have both aspirated and unaspirated pairs, while others lack a contrast between aspiration and no aspiration.

Phonological contrasts and cross-linguistic distribution

Aspiration can be phonemic, creating pairs such as an aspirated versus an unaspirated stop (for example, pʰ versus p in many languages). English, for instance, typically has aspirated voiceless stops at the beginning of stressed syllables, as in pin [pʰɪn], versus unaspirated positions in certain clusters. Other languages, like Spanish, have largely unaspirated voiceless stops in many positions. Some languages, such as Mandarin Chinese and Hindi, maintain a contrast between aspirated and unaspirated stops as a central part of their phonology, which can affect meaning.

Notation and transcription

In phonetic transcription, aspiration is indicated in several ways: a superscript h after the symbol (pʰ, tʰ, kʰ) or with a diacritic mark. In software and descriptive grammars, VOT values are used to quantify the degree of aspiration.

See also: voiceless stops, voice onset time, phonation.