The sad dog sat in the dock and poured the port in his cup - pre-fortis clipping.

My owners think this is coffee...

Hello and happy 2013 everyone! I hope you're in a better mood this January than poor Jeff in the picture, it seems he's fallen off the wagon again - some things never change...

So, what's this post all about then? 

Pre-fortis clipping is the shortening effect that fortis (voiceless) consonants have on the preceding vowel or sonorant consonant / m, n, ŋ, j, w, r, l / in a word. Consider the minimal pairs in this sentence:

The sad dog sat in the dock and poured the port in his cup.

1. sad / sat
2. dog / dock
3. poured / port

Read them aloud. Did you notice that the first word in each pair has a slightly longer vowel sound than the second? This is because of the shortening effect of the following fortis consonant. I realise that this is minimal but it could help you solve problems like this in class:

Problem: 

Rude Dog... and the Dweebs!

Lizz: Vanessa, what's your favourite animal?

Vanessa: A dock.

Lizz: What? Like Donald?

Vanessa: No. A dock. Like Rude Dock.

Lizz: Not 'doK', 'doG'!

Vanessa: That's what I said!

Now, just shouting 'doG' at Vanessa and hoping she'll catch on isn't going to help. The two things she needs to know are:

1. The /ɡ/ at the end of 'dog' is not fully voiced and therefore should not be emphasised as such. Word final voiced consonants in English tend not to keep full voice - we don't say 'baG', 'fooD' or 'huB'. If you need to transcribe this devoiced /ɡ/, use a small empty circle below it /dɒɡ̥/.
2. In order to make the distinction between 'dog' and 'dock' clear, you need to try and lengthen the vowel in 'dog'.

Practice Exercises

• Practise by over-emphasizing the lengthening before the voiced consonant then go shorter and shorter until it sounds natural.
• Then see whether your student can hear the difference; insert one word from your minimal pairs in the sentence below and ask them to point at the word you say.

I'm going to say _______ again.

e.g. I'm going to say dock again / I'm going to say dog again.

• Using the same phrase, change over; the student reads, you guess.

Minimal pairs

• made / mate      wade / weight     aid / ate
• bag / back          wag / whack      Jag / Jack
• hob / hop             rib / rip             cub / cup
• flung / flunk    felled / felt    grand / grant    punned / punt