Exercise 3: Perform characteristics of nasal sounds, lateral approximant

sounds and approximant sound.

1, Nasal sound

- There are 3 nasal consonants: m, n, ŋ.

- The basic characteristic of a nasal consonant is that the air escapes
through the nose.
- The soft palate is lowered. The air cannot pass through the mouth, it is
prevented by complete closure in the mouth at some point.
- The 3 types of closure:
+ Bilabial: m
+ Alveolar: n
+ Velar: ŋ
- Bilabial nasal consonant: m
+ The soft palate is lowered
+ The lips are slightly spread, pressed together forming a complete
obstruction to the air stream through the oral cavity.
+ The air passes through the nose and the vocal cords vibrate.
- Alveolar nasal consonant: n
+ The soft palate is lowered
+ The tip of the tongue touches the alveolar ridge, forming a
complete obstruction to the flow of air through the oral cavity.
+ The air passes through the nose and the vocal cords are vibrating.
-Velar nasal consonant: ŋ
+ In initial position, ŋ never occurs in this position
+ Medially, ŋ occurs quite frequently
+ When we find the letters “nk”, k will always be pronounced ( ex:
think, bank)
+ ŋ is pronounced with the following plosive g if the word cannot
be divided into 2 morphemes: verb + ending and not pronounced if
the word can be divided into a verb + ending.
+ A third way in which the distribution of ŋ is unusual is the small
number of vowels it is found to follow.

2, Lateral Approximant sound

THE CONSONANT l

+The l phoneme ( as in ‘long’ ,laŋ,’ hill’,hıl) is a lateral approximant.

+If you make a long L sound you may be able feel the side of your
tongue are pulled in and down while the centre is raised , but not easy to
conciously aware of this.
+In BBC pronunciation , the realisation of 1 found before vowelss sound
quite different from that found in other contexts.
-‘lea’ when called ‘dark L ‘ it resembles an ‘i’ vowel , with the front of
tongue raised different from ‘l’
+Another allphone of L is found when it follow ‘p,k’ at the beginning of
a stressed syllable.
+When the vowel follows ‘p,t,k’ in a stressed syllable : the first part of
the vowel is devoice.

3, Approximant sound

The consonant r features:

+ The tip of the tougue approaches the alveolar area but never make
contact with any part of the roof of the mouth.
+ Post alveolar
+ If r sound is found at beginning of t,d,p, it is then voiceless and
fricative such as ‘press,tress,cress’
+ It is usual for the lips to be sightly rounded.
+ r before vowels ex ring /rɪŋ/
+ r is followed by a vowel ex /keər/
+ r in final position and before consonant are called rhotic accents
+ r only occurs before vowel are called non-rhotic.

Consonants j and w
- They are phonetically like vowels but phonologically like
consonants ( in earlier works on phonology they were now as
“semivowels”
- The articulation of j is practically the same as that of a front close
vowel such as [i], but it very short
- The articulation of w is closely similar to [u].
- But despite this vowel-like character, we use them like consonants.
- If a word beginning with w or j is preceded by the indefinite
article, it is the ’a’ form that is found (as in ‘a way’, ;a year)