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Consonants

The 24 consonants are further subdivided into 7 sub parts according to


their place of articulation:

1 . Labial Consonants p, m,b,f V


Ks2. Alveolar Consonants
To2

Teet
3. Vental Consonants
B e dT n

4. Post Alveolar consonants

e5. Palatal Consonants <P


6. Velar Consonants

7. Glottal Consonants

abal
1. Labial Consonants: Labial consonants are consonants in which
one or both lips are the active articulator.
Labis
olntal
Cabis
The two common labial articulations are bilabials, articulated
using both lips, (m, p,b) and labiodentals, articulated with the
lower lip against the upper teeth (f,v,w). So total there are 6
labial consonants.

Im/ as in man

pl as in pit
/bl as in bit

5 as in fan

as in van

wl as in wed
2.Alveolar Consonants: Alveolar
consonants are articulated with the
tongue against or close to the superior alveolar
named after alveoli (the sockets) of the ridge. Alveolar ridge is
upper teeth. There are 7 alveolar
consonants as: n, t, d, s, z, I and r.

In as in not

/t as inh tab

/d/ 3 as in dad

Is as in sad

z as in Z0O

as i lad

as in red

3.Dental Consonants: A dental consonant is consonant articulated with


the tongue against the upper teeth, such as:

as in thought

as in them
4. Postalveolar Consonants 7.Glottal

Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue


near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, which are at the ridge
itself but not as far back as the hard palate.

There are four postalveolar consonants as

U r as in the word "ship"

[t1 as in the word "chill'

31 as in the word "vision"

[d3] as in the words "jump".


5.Palatai consonants
Palatal consonants consonants articulated with the body of
are
the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the
roof of the mouth).

as inn you

6.Velars consonants

Velars consonants are articulated with the back part of


the tongue against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the
mouth also known also as the velum).

3T as in sing
kl as in cab

/g/ T as in gab
1.Glottal Consonants
Glottal Consonants are consonants using the
glottis as their
primary articulation.

There is only one glottal consonant

/h as in hot

CONSONANTS BASED ON MANNER OF


ARTICULATION
1. Plosive Consonants

2. Fricative Consonants

3. Affricate Consonants

4. Approximant Consonants

5. Nasal Consonants

Plosive: A consonant that is produced by stopping the a airflow using


the lips, teeth or palate followed by sudden release of air.

e.g. t , k, p (voiceless, when vocal cord does not vibrates)

d, g and b (voiced, when vocal cord vibrates)

Fricative: A fricative consonant is a consonant that is made when you

squeeze air through a small hole or gap in your mouth.

fv,A,63Jhand z
Affricates
Affricates begin by fully stopping the air from leaving the vocal
tract (similar to a stop sound), then releasing it througha
constricted opening.
The English affricates, are 'ch sound'/ / and j sound' /dl.

Approximant
An approximant consonant is a consonant that is produced by
bringing one articulator (the tongue or lips) close to another
without actually touching it.

English approximants are j,,l,w


"I" in "like"
"r" in "right"
" " in "yes"
"w" in "wet".

Nasal
The consonants, in which air
escapes through the nose but not
through the mouth, as it is blocked
by the lips or tongue.
Nasal consonants are m, n and .

Consonant Clusters
A consonant cluster is 2, 3 or 4 consonant sounds in a row.

Examples of consonants clusters with 2 consonant sounds


are /bl/ in 'black', /sk/ in 'desk' and the /pt/ at the end of 'helped
Examples of clusters with 3 consonant sounds are /strl in
Isks/ in 'tasks' and the Ikst/ in 'string',
'sixty'
When we say a Syllables
word, the sounds
word into parts. WNe we
word "machine" hascall these parts create naturally divide the
has three two parts: "syllables." For example, the
ma-chine. The
parts:
im-por-tant. word
The number of "important"
of vowel syllables in a word
sounds. For is
two vowel example,
in
decided by its number
sounds: (8) and (i). the word
"machine," there are
The English language has up to 20 vowel
talk about all of them sounds, so we will not
that we make them today. But an easy way to identify vowels is
with the letters a, e,
i, o, u and sometimes
It is y.
important to know that one syllable
can have more than
vowel letter. one

For example, the word "room" has two vowel letters: o and o. But
together, they make only one vowel sound:
"room" has only This (u:). explains why
one syllable. We decide
syllables by sound, not
spelling.
There are 3 easy methods for
counting syllables.
1. One that I like
is the chin method. Here is how to do it: Rest
your
hand under your chin and say a word
slowly. How many times does
your chin drop onto your hand? That is the number of syllables.
2. Another is the clap method. To use it, say the word and clap your
hands together
each time you hear a vowel sound. For example,
take the word "autumn": au-tumn. That's two vowel sounds, so it's
two syllables even though autumn has three vowel letters: a,
u and u.

3. Third is mind blowing method is checking the change in Place of


Articulation
Now, let's do something fun. Look at the number of syllables in the
following words.
You can use the chin method, the clap method or Countthe number
of Vowels:

flower
thought
teacher

broadcast
dreamed

vehicle

WORD STRESS
Putting stress on the correct syllable is especially importantfor
words that are both nouns and verbs. Usually, if the stress is
placed on the first syllable it is a noun. If the stress is placed on
the second syllable it is a verb.

Putting stress on the correct syllabie is especially important for


words that are both nouns and verbs. Usually, if the stress is
placed on the first syllable it is a noun. If the stress is placed on
the second syllable it is a verb.

I n English, most two-syllable nouns are stressed on the first


syllable.

April carrot hon'or

Mon'day le'mon e'vil


Here are four general rules to keep in mind about word stress as you
practice pronunciation:
1. Stress the first syllable of:
a) Most two-syllable nouns (examples: CLImate, KNOWledge)
6) Most two-syllable adjectives (examples: FLIPpant, SPAcious)
2. Stress the last syllable of:
a) Most two-syllable verbs (examples: reQUIRE, deCIDE)
3. Stress the second-to-last
syllable of:
a) Words that end in -ic
(examples: ecSTATiC, geoGRAPHic)
b) Words ending in -sion and -tion (examples: exTENsion,
retriBUtion)
4. Stress the third-from-last
syllable of:
a) Words that end in-cy, -ty, phy and -gy (examples
deMOcracy, unCERtainty, ge0Graphy, radiOLogy)
b) Words that end in -al (examples: excEPtional, CRItical)

MORPHOLOGY
Morpheme is a
meaningful morphological unit of
language that a
cannot be further divided e.g. in,
-ing, forming incoming ).
come,
.In linguistics, morphology is the
study of words, how they are
formed, and their relationship to other words in the same
language.
It analyzes the structure of words and
parts of words, such as
stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes.

For example, the word "cat" has just one morpheme but the word
"cats" has 2, as the s denotes plurality.

.There are two main types: free and bound.

Free morphemes can occur alone for example, eat, date, weak.
Bound morphemes must Occurwith another morpheme,
For example, in "The
morpheme.
farmer wants to kill duckling," the bound
morphemes "-er," "s," and "ling" cannot stand on their own.
Morphology is concerned with the ways in which words are formed
in the languages of the world.
Syntax
Syntax is the order or arrangement of words and phrases to form
proper sentences. The most basic syntax follows a subject + verb
+direct object formula.

E.g., "Abhimanyu hit the ball." Syntax allows us to understand that


we wouldn't write, "Hit Abhimanyu the ball."

Lexemne
A lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set
of words
that are related through inflection.

It is a basic abstract unit of


meaning, a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that
roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single root word.

For example, in English, run, runs, ran and running are forms of
the same lexeme, which can be represented as run.

All the Best

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