CONSONANT PHONEMES

Consonant Phonemes

The process of finding out and

formulating phonemic structure of a
language consists of applying the
tests of phonetic similarity,
complementary distribution and free
variation to all phone types of the
language , combining them wherever
the circumstances permit into
phonemes.
 Structure of American
English
Since phonemes usually are
families of two or more phone-types,
we would expect that in any
language there are fewer phonemes
than there are phone-types. So, this
is indeed the case . In American
English, virtually all dialects fit into a
phonemic system of twenty-four
consonants, nine vowels, four
stresses, four pitches and four
 The dialects selected which are
sometimes lumped together
under the inaccurate title
General American are chosen
for three reason:

1. They are spoken by a majority

of Americans
2. They are fairly homogeneous
 The twenty four consonant phonemes
comprise six stops, two affricates, four
fricatives, four sibilants, three nasal, one
lateral and four semivowels.

Stops: There are three pairs of stop

phonemes, each pair consists of one fortis
voiceless phoneme and one lenis voiced.
The three pairs are the bilabial, the apico-
alveolar, and the dorso-velar.
Phonemics