Slack Voice

The term slack voice (or lax voice) describes the pronunciation of consonant or vowels with a glottal opening slightly wider than that occurring in modal voice. Such sounds are often referred to informally as lenis or half-voiced in the case of consonants. In some Chinese languages, such as Wu, and in many Austronesian languages, the 'intermediate' phonation of slack stops confuses listeners of languages without these distinctions, so that different transcription systems may use /p/ or /b/ for the same consonant. In Xhosa, slack-voiced consonants have usually been transcribed as breathy voice. Although the IPA has no dedicated diacritic for slack voice, the voiceless diacritic (the under-ring) may be used with a voiced consonant letter, though this convention is also used for partially voiced consonants in languages such as English.

Wu Chinese "muddy" consonants are slack voice, the primary effect of which is a slightly breathy quality of the following vowel

Wu Chinese form Chinese character translation form Chinese character translation form Chinese Character translation
slack voice white earth (possessive particle)
tenuis hundred (a grammatical particle) corner
aspirated to strike sky guest

Javanese contrasts slack and stiff voiced bilabial, dental, retroflex, and velar stops.

phonation IPA trans. IPA trans. IPA translation IPA trans. IPA trans.
stiff voice nail guest sheet (of paper) little river
slack voice standard blow (type of women's clothing) first to dig

Parauk contrasts slack voicing in its vowels. The contrast is between "slightly stiff" and "slightly breathy" vowels; the first are between modal and stiff voice, while the latter are captured by slack voice.

Famous quotes containing the words slack and/or voice:

    In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being.
    Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)

    During depression the world disappears. Language itself. One has nothing to say. Nothing. No small talk, no anecdotes. Nothing can be risked on the board of talk. Because the inner voice is so urgent in its own discourse: How shall I live? How shall I manage the future? Why should I go on?
    Kate Millett (b. 1934)