Am I right if i say unreleased consonants are also plosives? and could anyone elaborate on this topic? I am a bit confused. I know plosives are consonants produced by stopping the flow of air at some point and suddenly releasing it, so how come it’s the same with UNRELEASED consonants? Does it have something to do with the placement of the (t,d,k,g,p) letters in a certain word?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!!!
Plosives are not unreleased consonants. They are released, or else there wouldn’t be the little “explosion” that gives them their name “plosive”. A stop consonant at the beginning of a word is released, because you have to move your tongue out of position to go to the next sound. An unreleased stop consonant would be one, for example, at the end of a word, where the tongue is kept in position and there is no “plosion”.
“Released”, in this sense, just means that the tongue is moved out of the position for forming the consonant, in order to pronounce the next sound.