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by throwanem
3168 days ago
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"Voiced" in the phonetic sense [1], i.e., spoken with the vocal cords vibrating. Voiced 'x' sounds like the /gz/ in "eggs", /ɛgz/; voiceless 'x' sounds like the /ks/ in the American English pronunciation of 'x' itself, /ɛks/. Many, if not all, American English dialects pronounce the words in the fashion I describe. In them, the name 'Alexander' would be /ˌæ.lɛˈ(gz)æn.dər/
while 'Alexa' would be /əˈlɛ.(ks)ə/
- in both of which, the phoneme corresponding to the letter 'x' is parenthesized.Generally in English 'x' is voiced when it precedes a stressed vowel, which it does in 'Alexander'; in 'Alexa', 'x' precedes a reduced vowel, and therefore would always take the unvoiced pronunciation. (It'd sound very odd to an anglophone ear otherwise - say /əˈlɛ.gzə/ one time out loud and see if you don't feel the same.) That said, it wouldn't be incorrect to pronounce 'Alexander' in American English with an unvoiced 'x', as /ˌæ.lɛˈksæn.dər/
but, while I believe some dialects of English may default to this pronunciation, certainly not all do. (Neither of the dialects I speak does so, at the very least.) This pronunciation also produces a "hitch" or break in the word between the unvoiced 'x' and its preceding vowel, which would tend to make it a little odd both to hear and to say.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_(phonetics) |
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