Re: Subtitutes for English /T/ and /D/

<jwlawler@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

It depends on your objective. If you wish to sound native then
consider using [f] and [v] but an argument against is that these
dialects are not very prestigious.

The idea is to communicate and avoid listeners being distracted or confused by one's peculiarities of speech.

To conform to them you may need to
also drop [h]. I don't know if all dialects which replace [T] with
[f] also drop [h] but the ones that I am familiar with do.

My childhood idiolect lacked [T] but had [h]. [D] was restricted to word-initial position - elsewhere it was replaced by [v]. I have heard non-initial /D/ consistently pronounced as something intermediate between [v] and [D] - coarticulated? Perhaps the substitution recommendations should be to use [f] for [T] everywhere, but use [d] for [D] word initially and [v] for [D] elsewhere. Dropping [h] is unlikely to aid communication.

Richard.

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