Voice onset time Voice onset time In phonetics, voice onset time, commonly abbreviated VOT, is a feature of the production of stop consonants. It is defined as the length of time that passes between when a stop consonant is released and when voicing, the vibration of the vocal folds, or, according to the authors, periodicity begins...
+ Aspirated Aspiration (phonetics) In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
0 Tenuis
− Voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...

In linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

, a tenuis consonant (icon) is a stop

Stop consonant

In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...

 or affricate

Affricate consonant

Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...

 which is unvoiced, unaspirated

Aspiration (phonetics)

In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...

, and unglottalized

Glottalic consonant

A glottalic consonant is a consonant produced with some important contribution of the glottis ....

. That is, it has a "plain" phonation

Phonation

Phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, phonation is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the definition used among those who study laryngeal anatomy and physiology...

 like [p, t, ts, tʃ, k], with a voice onset time

Voice onset time

In phonetics, voice onset time, commonly abbreviated VOT, is a feature of the production of stop consonants. It is defined as the length of time that passes between when a stop consonant is released and when voicing, the vibration of the vocal folds, or, according to the authors, periodicity begins...

 close to zero, as in Spanish p, t, ch, k, or as in English p, t, k after s (spy, sty, sky).

In transcription, tenuis consonants are not normally marked explicitly, with voiceless IPA letters such as [p, t, ts, tʃ, k] assumed to be unaspirated unless indicated otherwise. However, there is an explicit diacritic for a lack of aspiration in the Extensions to the IPA

Extensions to the IPA

The Extensions to the IPA are extensions of the International Phonetic Alphabet and were designed for disordered speech. However, some of the symbols are occasionally used for transcribing normal speech as well, particularly in certain languages.-Brackets:The Extended IPA for speech pathology has...

, the superscript equal sign: [p˭, t˭, ts˭, tʃ˭, k˭].

The term tenuis comes from Latin translations of Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 grammar, which differentiated three series of consonants, voiced β δ γ /b d ɡ/, aspirate φ θ χ /pʰ tʰ kʰ/, and tenuis π τ κ /p˭ t˭ k˭/; these series have close parallels in other Indo-European languages

Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

, such as Armenian

Armenian language

The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...

.

See also

• Grassmann's law
  Grassmann's Law
  Grassmann's law, named after its discoverer Hermann Grassmann, is a dissimilatory phonological process in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit which states that if an aspirated consonant is followed by another aspirated consonant in the next syllable, the first one loses the aspiration...
  
  
• Spiritus asper
  Spiritus asper
  In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing , is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, diphthong, or rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even after the Hellenistic period, when the sound disappeared from the Greek language...
  
  
• Spiritus lenis
  Spiritus lenis
  The smooth breathing is a diacritical mark used in polytonic orthography. In ancient Greek, it marks the absence of the voiceless glottal fricative from the beginning of a word....