The fortis fallacy

Obstruent

a consonant produced with significant obstruction of airflow; includes plosives, fricatives, and affricates.

Fortis

a “strong” obstruent in English, characterized by aspiration, shorter preceding vowel, and stronger articulation.

Lenis

A “weak” obstruent in English, often unaspirated and phonetically voiced when surrounded by voiced sounds.

Aspirating language

A language like English where the main contrast between obstruents is aspiration, not voicing.

Voicing language

A language where obstruents contrast primarily in voicing, e.g., Hungarian or Polish.

Voicing assimilation

A phonological process where an obstruent becomes voiced due to an adjacent voiced obstruent; not present in English.

Passive voicing

Voicing of a lenis obstruent caused by surrounding sonorants or lenis consonants, not by an inherent phonological feature.

Prefortis clipping

Shortening of the vowel (and preceding sonorant) before a fortis consonant.

Obstruent cluster types

Clusters can be:

• LF (lenis+fortis)

• FL (fortis+lenis)

• LL (lenis+lenis)

• FF (fortis+fortis) is generally disallowed within morphemes.

D and Z suffixes

Single-consonant suffixes in English (past tense [d]/[t] and plural/3sg [z]/[s]) whose allomorphs do not undergo voicing assimilation.

Fortis+fortis constraint (FF)

Phonotactic rule proposed for English: two fortis obstruents cannot be adjacent within a morpheme.

Excrescent plosive

A plosive inserted between a nasal and another consonant, as in “sphincter” [sviŋkθ], to aid articulation.

Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP)

Phonological principle stating that syllables typically rise in sonority toward the nucleus and fall afterward.

Onset Maximization Principle

Principle stating that syllables maximize the number of consonants in the onset, without violating sonority.

Laryngeal category

The phonological specification of an obstruent as either fortis (aspirated) or lenis (unaspirated).

Obstruent-vowel interactions

Fortis consonants shorten preceding vowels; lenis consonants do not.

Plural allomorphy

English plural /s/ or /z/ selection depends on preceding obstruent: voiceless → /s/, voiced → /z/.

Past tense allomorphy

English past tense /t/ or /d/ selection mirrors plural rule: voiceless → /t/, voiced → /d/.

Allomorph

Variant form of a morpheme conditioned by phonological context.

Neutralization

When phonological contrasts (e.g., fortis/lenis) are lost in specific contexts.

Devoicing

Process by which a voiced obstruent becomes voiceless, often in final position.

Laryngeal neutralization

Loss of fortis/lenis distinction in certain phonological environments.

Phonetic cues for English obstruents

Aspiration, vowel length, and preceding sonorant length indicate fortis vs lenis.

Cross-linguistic distribution

Some clusters allowed in one language may be prohibited in another due to phonotactic constraints.

Morpheme-internal cluster restriction

Restrictions on which consonant sequences can occur within a single morpheme.

Post-lexical phonology

Processes that apply after the morphological composition of words.

Lexical phonology

The theory that phonological rules can apply at different levels of word formation (lexical vs post-lexical).

Phonotactics

Rules governing permissible combinations of sounds in a language.

English fortis/lenis “paradigm”

The set of all fortis and lenis obstruents and their predictable behaviors in clusters, suffixation, and vowel interactions.