While I am learning the American pronunciation, I find that the Americans pronounce the word "shorter" quite differently from the British. Specifically, the "t" sound in the word is pronounced like the "d" sound. Therefore, could somebody help me to explain this? Is there a rule behind this?
Learn English – Why do Americans pronounce the word “shorter” differently from the British
american-englishconsonantspronunciation
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If you mean the difference between the two L’s in the word little, the first one [l] is the same as the Italian L of your acquaintance and is sometimes called a “bright L” or a “clear L”, while the second is an allophone of English sometimes referred to as a “dark L”, written [lˠ] or [ɫ].
The key difference is that the dark version is velarized, which here means that the back of your tongue flattens out and moves up a bit. The normal demo-word for this sound is FULL. If you have ever heard Catalan spoken, you will find that the Catalans often have dark L’s where a Castilian speaker would have a bright one like you do. It probably sounds a bit “swallowed” to your ear.
The exact distribution of these two allophones for phonemic /l/ varies by region, speaker, and syllable position. Some speakers have only one or the other of the two, while others have both. [reference]
Technically speaking, the dark L is:
The velarized alveolar lateral approximant, also known as dark l, is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The regular symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨lˠ⟩, though the dedicated letter ⟨ɫ⟩ is perhaps more common.
In contrast, the other L is:
The alveolar lateral approximant, also known as clear l, is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is ⟨l⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is l.
/i:/ is the vowel that we find in the word FLEECE. I put that word in capitals because that is how that vowel is often referred to by linguists: the fleece vowel - or FLEECE for short. (This is not random, the word was specifically chosen for a number of specific reasons.) It is the vowel sound at the end of the word guarantee. In transcriptions of British English it has a colon [ : ] in the symbol to describe the length.
/ɪ/ is the vowel in the word KIT. It is known as the kit vowel - or KIT for short. It is the vowel we find in prefixes and suffixes, the bits we stick onto the beginnings and ends of words. So, for example it is the vowel we hear in --ing verb endings.
The vowel represented by /i/ at the ends of words in dictionaries is usually referred to as the happy vowel - HAPPY. This vowel may sound like either FLEECE or KIT, but is always short in duration.
If you say the < y > sound that we find in the word yes, and then say the < e> we find in the word end, the kit vowel is somewhere between the two sounds. This is the first vowel in the word infinitely. This word would sound very odd to a native speaker if it was said with a fleece vowel, /i:/! It would sound like a made-up word: eenfinitely.
The Original Poster asks if there is a big difference between these vowels. If we are talking about the physical difference between the sounds, the answer is: no. In fact, it is very unusual to have two vowels that are so similar in one language. They are very close together. In most languages these would count as one vowel. However, if we are talking about the meaning, or the effect on a listener, the answer is: yes! There is a big difference. There are very, very, very many words that we can be confused about if you say the wrong vowel. For example, the words peace and piss. Nobody wants to say Piss man!, when they mean Peace man!.
If you want to type IPA script, this website is very useful
Hope this helps,
Peace!
Best Answer
I believe the answer has to do with how the "r" that precedes the consonant "t" is being produced in American English (EDIT: when saying the word shorter as distinct from saying the word carton).
The American "r" can be produced with lips nearly pursed (imagine a goldfish), and that constricted mouth position causes the "t" to move from unvoiced dental [t] towards voiced dental [d].
The british "r" is produced with the cheeks tauter and drawn slightly back, and that mouth position is more amenable to an unvoiced dental [t].