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Consonants:
First of all, what is a consonant? A consonant is produced when the airflow is hindered or blocked. A vowel, on the other hand, is produced when the air accompanying a speech sound passes freely through the vocal tract.
Studying consonants is usually carried on by classifying them, a process which has to go through three categories:
- Voicing
- Place of articulation
- Manner of articulation
We have already seen voicing, so let's move on to the place of articulation. The place of articulation depends on the articulators involved in the production of the sound, so it depends on where the sound is produced.
To produce the sounds /k/, /ŋ/, and /g/, the tongue is in contact with the lower side of the velum. For this reason, they are called velar consonants.
When sounds, such as /t/ and /d/, are made with the tongue touching the alveolar ridge, alveolar consonants are produced. Other alveolar consonants are /s/, /l/, /n/, and /z/.
/ʃ/ and /ʒ/ are post-alveolar consonants. /dʒ/
/r/ and /tʃ/ are too.
When the tip of the tongue enters in contact with the front teeth a dental consonant is produced, like the sounds that correspond to the grapheme <th> (which are /θ/and /ð/).
The lips are very productive articulators since they can be used to articulate at least two kinds of consonants:
- Bilabial consonants, such as /p/, /m/, /w/ and /b/
- Labiodental consonants, like /f/ and /v/
A palatal consonant is /j/.
The third category used to classify the consonants is the manner of articulation, which is distinguished from the other two, based on how the sound is produced.
One of the groups of phonemes based on the manner of articulation is the plosives.
- In this group we can find the sounds: /p/, /b/, /k/, /g/, /t/ and /d/.
- When producing these sounds we notice that there is an initial closing phase, due to the interaction of articulators which causes a total initial oral stop, a stricture.
Then follows a compression phase, when air is
compressed in the oral cavity. To this second phase, follows a third one: the release phase, when air is released due to the movement of articulators. The three phases may be summed up by using the three words: pressure-noise-plosion. We could also use some alternative terminology such as: - Fortis (which are the strong ones), so called because they are pronounced with more force, even though they are voiceless/unvoiced (/p/, /t/ and /k/). They also have an audible plosion when they are in an initial position in the word (which is aspiration). - Lenis (the weak ones), which are pronounced with less force and are voiced (/b/, /d/ and /g/). When they are in an initial position they have a weak plosion and aren't therefore aspirated. The position of the plosive inside the word determines slightly different articulations, as we can hear in the wordsinitial position in the word <but> (in a “consonant-vowel” structure),– in a medial one in the word <maybe> (with a “vowel-consonant-vowel” structure) and– in a final position in the word <cab> (in a “vowel-consonant” structure).
Another phenomenon is the one of the pre-fortis clipping, such as we can see in the words <bet> and <bed>. Here, the phoneme /e/ is shorter in the first word, than in the second.
The largest group of phonemes based on the manner of articulation is the fricatives.
- They are /f/, /θ/, /s/, /ʃ/ which are unvoiced and /v/, /ð/, /z/, /ʒ/ which are the voiced ones.
- In this case air escaping through a narrow opening makes a turbulent or hissing sound.
- Fricative consonants are continuant consonants (plosive consonants are non continuant ones).
- There is also the “voiceless glottal” fricative, which is the sound /h/. In this case the voicing and the place of
● Let’s now talk about the two affricates:
○ They are /dʒ/, which is voiced, and /tʃ/, which is unvoiced.
○ They are a single sound composed of a stop portion and a fricative portion: airflow is first interrupted by a stop /t/ or /d/, and then the tongue pulls away from the stop slowly, producing these sounds.
● The nasal consonants…
○ are all voiced and they are /m/,
/n/ and /ŋ/ (this one is the sound we hear in words like <string> and <singer>, not in words like <anger> or <finger>).
Since the airflow must be hindered or blocked, nasal stops involve airflow through the nose and, for air to escape through the nasal cavity, it's necessary that the soft palate lowers (usually it is raised). In these cases air doesn't pass through the mouth due to a complete closure of the mouth at some point. These closures may be:
- at the height of the lips,
- created by the tongue blade against the alveolar ridge,
- or by the back of the tongue against the palate.
In the English language there are four approximants:
- they are /w/, /j/, /r/ and /l/ and they are all voiced, even though in certain contexts they can become devoiced.
- In the production of these sounds the articulators approach each other but don't get sufficiently close to produce a "complete" consonant such as a plosive, nasal or fricative.
Air doesn't become turbulent.
/w/ and /j/ are phonetically like vowels, phonologically like consonants.
/r/ varies in some accents: it may be rhotic (in American and Scottish accents) or non-rhotic.
/l/ is called lateral approximant: the air flows around the side of the tongue.
There are two distinctions (allophones) of this sound:
- the clear /l/, which is in an initial position and is before vowels,
- the dark [ɫ], which stands in a final position and is found before consonants.
They could be found both in the same word, like in <little> which narrow transcription would be [ˈlɪtɫ].
Class 28/02
Vowels:
As we can classify consonants we can do the same with vowels, but we need to use different categories to do so. The articulators involved in producing a vowel sound are the upper and the lower lip, plus the tongue, so they are going to have a core-role in defining them. The categories are such as follows:
- height, which states how high or low the tongue
is inside de mouth,
2. frontness or backness, that refers to how far front or back the tongue is,
3. roundedness, on the other hand, only refers to whether the lips are rounded or not.
With the first criteria we can observe if a vowel sound is close (so if tongue is closer to the palate and is therefore “high”) or open (so the tongue is lower inside the oral cavity and the mouth is freely open).
The second one tells us whether a vowel is front (because the front part of the tongue is raised) or back (since in this case the back part of the tongue would be raised).
The third criteria, helps us understand whether a vowel is spread or rounded.
We can also divide the vowels in three main groups:
- seven short vowels,
- five long vowels,
- eight diphthongs and many triphthongs.
In English the pure vowels are twelve, and they are all represented in the scheme. Here we can see their division in the two categories of height (on the left) and frontness (on the top).
The height of the tongue:
Close vowels: there is a narrow space between the tongue and the roof of the mouth. They are:
- /ɪ/ sit
- /iː/ seat
- /ʊ/ foot
- /uː/ food
Close mid/open mid vowels: the tongue is positioned midway between an open vowel and a close vowel.
- /e/ pen
- /ɜː/ her
- /ɔː/ more
- /ə/ the (before consonant)
- /ʌ/ but
Open vowels: there is a wide space between the tongue and the roof of the mouth, the jaw is dropped and the mouth open.
- /æ/ bat
- /ɒ/ lot
- /ɑː/ car, father
The position of the tongue:
Front vowels: the front part of the tongue is raised.
- /iː/ pea
- /ɪ/ thin
- /e/ then
- /æ/ cat
Central vowels: the tongue position is neutral.
- /ʌ/ money, putt
- /ʊ/ put
- /ɜː/ bird, fern, purse
- /ə/ about, another
Back vowels: the back part of the tongue is raised.
- /ɑː/ bar
- /ɒ/ lot, calm
- /ɔː/ oar
- /uː/ shoe
The rounding of lips:
Short vowels:
- /ɪ/ pin
- /e/ pen
- /æ/ pat
- /ʌ/ putt
- /iː/ bee
- /ɜː/ burr
- /ɑː/ bar
- /ɔː/ boar
- /uː/ boo
Diphthongs are all one vowel glide, and they may be divided in three groups:
- Centring, which have a glide towards central /ə/:
- /ɪə/ beard, peer
- /eə/ pear, mayor
- /ʊə/ poor, insure, tour
- Closing, which have a glide towards close /ɪ/:
- /eɪ/ take, pay, wait
- /aɪ/ five, sigh, buy
- /ɔɪ/ noise, boy, lawyer
- Closing, which have a glide towards close /ʊ/:
- /əʊ/ no, road, home, most
- /aʊ/ round, renown, doubt
A triphthong is a two vowel glides, and they are usually formed by adding a schwa (/ə/) to a closing diphthong:
- Glide towards close /ɪ/ + /ə/:
- /eɪə/ player
- /aɪə/ fire, liar, tyre
- /ɔɪə/ loyal
- Glide towards close /ʊ/ + /ə/:
- /əʊə/ lower
- /aʊə/ power, hour
Stress:
In most languages, the more syllables, the longer it takes to say something because
eachsyllable is (more or less) the same length. These are all syllable-timed languages, such as Italian, French, Spanish, Finnish, Hindi, etc.
In some languages, like English, German, Russian and Dutch, syllables are not the same length. Some are long (stressed), others are short (unstressed). These are called stress-timed languages.
When talking about syllables and stress patterns it is essential to be aware of the notion of what feet are. Feet allow us to measure the rhythmic structure of a language.
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