Consonants of English

Presented by
Marwa Mahmoud Abd El Fattah
Introduction

Speech sounds are produced through the passage of air coming from lungs
and coming out of the mouth. When air moves out of the lings we say that there is
an egressive pulmonic airstream. This movement of air is the most commonly
found in the language of the world, there are other ways for making the air moving
the vocal tract but there are irrelevant to the study of English sounds. How then we
can get this variant group of speech sounds? The fact that each slight change in the
vocal tract results in a different sound can account for the existence of variant
group speech sounds. Speech sounds can mainly be classified into consonants and
vowels. Consonants contribute more to making English understood than vowels.
Consonants are made by definite interference of the vocal organs and hence they
are easier to describe and understand. We even notice that teaching young children
the language will be easier for the part of consonants and the more mistakes will be
found in the distinction and realization of vowels not consonants.

We have 24 distinctive consonants in English. Producing consonants involve

making the vocal tract narrower at some location than it usually it is. This
narrowing is called a constriction; which sound you produce depend on where is
the constriction and how narrow is it.

Criteria for classifying consonants:

They can be classified according to three major areas:

 Voicing - vibration or lack of vibration of the vocal folds.

 Place of Articulation: the point at which the air stream is most restricted.
 Manner of Articulation: What happens to the moving column of air, how the
airflow is controlled

1-Voicing

All vowels must be voiced - they are caused by vibration in the vocal cords. But
consonants may be voiced or not. Some of the consonant sounds of English come
in pairs that differ in being voiced or not - in which case they are described as
voiceless or unvoiced. So /b/ is voiced and /p/ is the unvoiced consonant in one
pair, while voiced /g/ and voiceless /k/ form another pair. When the vocal folds are
tensed, they vibrate as the air stream passes them. The result is a voiced sound,
such as /z/ and /v/. When the vocal folds relax, the air stream passes them without
causing vibration. The result is a voiceless sound, such as /s/, /f/ and /t/.

We can explain the consonant sounds by the place where the articulation
principally occurs or by the kinds of articulation that occurs there. The first scheme
gives us this arrangement:

2- Place of articulation:

 Glottal articulation - articulation by the glottis. We use this for one

consonant in English. This is /h/ in initial position in house or hope.
 Velar articulation - we do this with the back of the tongue against the velum.
We use it for initial hard /g/ (as in golf) and for final /ŋ/ (as in gong).
 Palatal articulation as in / j/
 Palato alveolar (post alveolar) as we do this with the front of the tongue on
the hard palate. We use it for /dʒ/ (as in jam) and for /ʃ/ (as in sheep or
sugar).
 Alveolar articulation - we do this with the tongue blade on the alveolar
ridge. We use it for /t/ (as in teeth), /d/ (as in dodo) /z/ (as in zebra) /n/ (as in
no) and /l/ (as in light).
 Dental articulation - we do this with the tip of the tongue on the back of the
upper front teeth. We use it for /θ/ (as in think) and /ð/ (as in that). This is
one form of articulation that we can observe and feel ourselves doing.
 Labio-dental articulation - we do this with the lower lip and upper front
teeth. We use it for /v/ (as in vampire).
 Bilabial articulation - we do this with the lips for /b/ (as in boat) and /m/ (as
in most). Where we use two lips (as in English) this is bilabial articulation.

3- Manner of articulation

This scheme gives us a different arrangement into stop(or plosive) consonants,

affricates, fricatives, nasal consonants, laterals and approximants.

 Stop consonants (so-called because the airflow is stopped) or plosive

consonants (because it is subsequently released, causing an outrush of air
and a burst of sound) are:
o Bilabial voiced /b/ (as in boat) and voiceless /p/ (as in post)
 o Alveolar voiced /d/ (as in dad) and voiceless /t/ (as in tap)
o Velar voiced /g/ (as in golf) and voiceless /k/ (as in cow)

The English Stops

In the stop consonants the air is stopped completely at some point in the mouth by
the lips or the tongue tip or the tongue back and then released with a slight
explosion. These plosives, in terms of their place of articulation are bilabial,
alveolar, and velar.
there is a distinction to be made before proceeding: some phoneticians say that p
,t , k are produced with more force than b, d, g and that is better to give the two
sets a name indicating that fact, the names are fortis and lenis meaning strong and
weak.

a- [p] is a voiceless, bilabial, fortis plosive. Its variants include an aspirated

plosive if the consonant is followed by a stressed vowel and occurs in
syllable-initial position. Being a bilabial stop, [p] is produced by completely
blocking the airstream at the level of the lips and by suddenly releasing the
air with an explosion. It is distributed in initial, medial and final position:
pane, appear, lip.

b- [b] is the voiced, lenis counterpart of [p]. Voicing and force of articulation
are the features that contrast the two phonemes, [b] being like [p] a bilabial
sound. It is distributed in all three basic positions; initial, medial and final:
bet, above, cab. The letter is silent in final position after m: limb, crumb,
dumb and in front of t in words of Latin origin where the sound has long
been lost: debt, doubt, subtle. The variants of [b] include partially devoiced
allophones in initial position: big, blow, bring and laterally or nasally
released allophones when [b] is followed by the lateral l: blessor by a nasal
consonant: ribbon. It is not audibly released in final position: rib.

c- The pair t and d are produced by the tip of the tongue against the alveolat
ridge and the sides of the tongue against the sides of the palate [t] is a
voiceless, alveolar, fortis plosive. Like [p], it has an aspirated variant that
occurs before stressed vowels when the phoneme is distributed in syllable-
initial position: tube. If preceded by s, however, [t] is unaspirated: stain. Its
distribution includes all basic positions: try, attain, pit. It is laterally or
nasally released if followed by [l] or by a nasal consonant, respectively:
little, written, utmost.
d- [d] is the voiced, lenis counterpart of [t], voicing and force of articulation
differentiating between the two sounds that share the same place of
articulation in the alveolar region.. The sound is distributed in initial, medial
and final position: dime, addition, pad. It is partially devoiced in initial
position: duke and devoiced in final position: road. It is laterally released if
followed by [l]: riddle and nasally released if followed by [m] or [n]: admit,
sudden.

e- [k] is a voiceless, velar, fortis, plosive sound, articulated with the back of
the tongue against the back roof of mouth "the soft palate", breath is trapped
for a short time and when tongue is lowered air rushes out with slight
explosion. Like the other voiceless plosives described above, it has an
aspirated variant if the sound is distributed in syllable-initial position, in
front of a stressed vowel: cat. [k] is distributed in initial, medial and final
position: coat, accuse, sack. In spelling, the sound can be represented by the
letter c(e.g. comb) or by cc(e.g. accuse), by k(e.g. kill), by ck(e.g. pick), by
ch(e.g. architect), by qu(e.g. queen).

f - [g] is the voiced, lenis pair of [k]. It is distributed in initial, medial and
final position: game, begin, rag. Its allophones include partially devoiced
variants in initial position: gain, devoiced variants in final position: dog,
laterally released, when followed by [l]: giggle and nasally released when
followed by [m]: dogmatic. In spelling, the consonant can be rendered by g:
get by gg: begged, or by g followed by h, as in ghastly.

g- The glottal stop[?] is a glottal, voiceless, fortis sound produced in the

glottal region by bringing the vocal cords together and then separating them,
thus completely blocking and then suddenly releasing the airstream ( a
closure in the vocal cords). It is a sound that has been compared with a slight
cough. It appears in syllable-final position especially when it separates two
adjacent vowels that are not part of the same syllable: geography [ʤɪ’?
ɔgrəfɪ]or between a vowel and a syllable-final voiceless stop or affricate that
it reinforces. In some accents (notably Cockney), it replaces voiceless
plosives like [k] and [t] at the end of a syllable. E.g. sick guy[sɪ?gaɪ] or quite
right[kwaɪ?raɪt].

Affricates

Affricates are a kind of stop consonant, where the expelled air causes
friction rather than explosion. The friction in affricates is of shorter duration
than that for the fricatives. They are palatal /tʃ/ (as in cheat) and palatal /dʒ/
(as in jam)

Fricatives

Fricatives come from restricting, but not completely stopping, the airflow.
The air passes through a narrow space and the sound arises from the friction
this produces. They come in voiced and unvoiced pairs:

o Labio-dental voiced /v/ (as in vole) and unvoiced /f/ (as in foal)
o Dental voiced /ð/ (as in those) and unvoiced /θ/ (as in thick)
o Alveolar voiced /z/ (as in zest) and unvoiced /s/ (as in sent)
o Palatal voiced /ʒ/ (as in the middle of leisure) and unvoiced /ʃ/ (as at
the end of trash)

Nasals

Nasal consonants involve closing the articulators but lowering the uvula,
which normally closes off the route to the nose, through which the air
escapes. There are three nasal consonants in English:

o Bilabial /m/ (as in mine)

o Alveolar /n/ (as in nine)
o Velar /ŋ/ (as at the end of gong)

Lateral

Lateral consonants: sometimes called liquids, they allow the air to escape at
the sides of the tongue. In English there is only one such sound, which is
alveolar /l/ (as at the start of lamp)

Approximants or glides

Approximants do not impede the flow of air. They are all voiced but are
counted as consonants chiefly because of how they function in syllables.
They are:

o Bilabial /w/ (as in water)

o Alveolar /r/ (as in road)
 o Palatal /j/ (as in yet)

The following table will classify the of English according to the three dimension
of classification and if they have similar Arabic sounds:

The
Voiced Or Place of Manner of
English Similar sound in Arabic
Voiceless articulation articulation
sounds
/p/ Voiceless Bilabial Stop Does not exist in Arabic except in
borrowed works like (‫) بالج‬
/b/ Voiced Bilabial Stop /‫ب‬/
/t/ Voiceless Alveolar Stop /‫ت‬/
/d/ Voiced Alveolar Stop /‫د‬/
/k/ Voiceless Velar Stop /‫ك‬/
/g/ Voiced Velar Stop /‫ج‬/ This sound is pronounced like /g/ in
colloquial Arabic but in the Qur’an it is
pronounced like / Ʒ /
/tʃ / Voiceless Post alveolar Stop or This sound is similar to the Arabic / ‫ت‬/
(affricate) followed by the Arabic / ‫ ش‬/
/dƷ / Voiced Post alveolar Stop or No similar Arabic sound.
(affricate)
/m/ Voiced Bilabial Nasal /‫م‬/
/n/ Voiced Alveolar Nasal /‫ن‬/
/ŋ/ Voiced Velar Nasal This sound is similar to the Arabic / ‫ن‬/
followed by / ‫ ج‬/
/f/ Voiceless Labiodental Fricative /‫ف‬/
/v/ Voiced Labiodental Fricative Does not exist in Arabic except in
borrowed works like (‫ ) فيال‬and in some
texts it may be written with three points
above / ‫ ف‬/ instead of one to distinguish
them it from the Arabic /‫ف‬/
/θ/ Voiceless Dental Fricative /‫ث‬/
/ð/ Voiced Dental Fricative /‫ذ‬/
/s/ Voiceless Alveolar Fricative /‫س‬/
/z/ Voiced Alveolar Fricative / ‫ز‬/
/ʃ/ Voiceless Post alveolar Fricative /‫ش‬/
/Ʒ/ Voiced Post alveolar Fricative / ‫ ج‬/ as pronounced in the Holy Qur’an
/r/ Voiced Retroflex Gliding / ‫ ر‬/ but in Arabic it is pronounced with a
sort of repetition (retroflex)
/j/ Voiced Palatal Gliding /‫ي‬/
/w/ Voiced Labial+ velar Gliding /‫و‬/
/l/ Voiced Alveolar Lateral /‫ل‬/
/h/ Voiceless Glottal Fricative / ‫ هـ‬/