Re: Goran on phonology

[Jim Carter <jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU>]

> ... I believed that English aspirates a voiceless plosive if
> and only if it is the first consonant in the word and is followed by a
> vowel. I don't know whether it also happens to the voiced plosives, I
> think not. So if I am right, it doesn't have any distinctive function, and
> replaces its unaspirated pair only in one special case:
>
> kill [k'ill] vs. gill [gill],

Now with an example I understand this thread, and why it was formerly
incomprehensible: in my accent (USA kind of standard I think) one doesn't
aspirate [kill] except in football war-cries that are being exaggerated
for effect.  And as in the other examples given, one also doesn't normally
aspirate the other plosives (voiced or voiceless) except for artistic
effect or for faking "foreign" accents.

                -- jimc