Release stage of plosives. An entry from John Maidment's blog

Please release me
A recent post in John Wells’s blog partly concerned the matter of variations in the release of plosive consonants. The release stage of a plosive is when the articulators part to allow the compressed air to start flowing again. If a vowel follows the plosive, the release is achieved by breaking the contact between the active and passive articulator. So, for example, the release of a [t] involves moving the tip of the tongue away from the alveolar ridge.

However, there at least two situations where plosives may be released in a different way. Take for example the word topmost. Here the plosive is immediately followed by a homorganic nasal. In English at least, this situation is very likely to result in what is usually called nasal release. Instead of the lips parting to release the compressed air, they remain closed. The soft palate is lowered and simultaneously vocal fold vibration begins and the compressed air is released via the nasal cavity. A nasally released plosive is usually symbolised with a following superscript nasal symbol with the relevant place of articulation. So topmost would be [ˈtɒpmməʊst].

Another release variation occurs when a plosive is followed by a homorganic lateral. Take for example the word middle. Here the compressed air is set free by lowering one or both sides of the tongue, rather than by removing the alveolar closure on the midline of the vocal tract.

Both of these variations have in common the fact that the release borrows something of the phonetic nature of the immediately following segment. I suppose that we could call this context-sensitive release. I have often thought it would be useful to have a single diacritic for such a situation. This would avoid the need for a plethora of different superscript symbols and would also highlight the similarity between the release variations.

My suggestion is to use [p< d< k<] etc. to mean context sensitive release, so [t