[Vocabulary] piped

[Silverobama]

Hi,

How do you pronounce the bold word in this sentence?

The admiral was piped aboard.

Should it be "pt" or "pd"?

 

[Silverobama]

The final consonant of 'piped' is /t/ when a voiceless consonant (or nothing at all) follows it. However, when it is followed by a vowel, it is quite likely to be pronounced /d/.

According to this rule, here it's "paipt", am I right?

 

[probus]

According to this rule, here it's "paipt", am I right?

No, that's the opposite of what Piscean said. The final consonant would usually be voiced because it is followed by a vowel.

 

[Tdol]

They piped the admiral on board. /t/
The admiral was piped aboard. /d/

 

[jutfrank]

I would pronounce it with a /t/. This is also how I would teach you to say it.

 

[bubbha]

They piped the admiral on board. /t/
The admiral was piped aboard. /d/

I would pronounce it as /t/ in both cases. It's the sound preceding "-ed" that determines its sound, not the sound coming after. At least that's the way I have always known it to be, and how we analyzed it in my linguistics class.

 

[Tdol]

I hadn't thought about Piscean's view until I read his post, but the more I tried it out, the more I agreed with him. It may be something between a /d/ and a /t/, but it is a less pure /t/ to me.

 

[jutfrank]

Yes, it's both the sounds preceding and following that affect the articulation of -ed (or anything else).

I suspect that the tendency to focus on only the preceding sound as instrumental may be for reasons of pedagogical simplicity. That way, you can analyse single words, and derive relatively simple and quickly teachable rules without having to worry about going into the complexities of connected speech.