Week 5-7

CONSONANTS
 CONSONANTS
• Manners of articulation: each major type of
consonant obstructs the airflow in a different
way.
• Place of articulation: point of contact where
an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract.  
• Voicing: vocal cords/vocal folds vibrate or not
Vibrate: voiced/lenis (weak)
Not vibrate: voiceless/fortis (strong)
Larynx
 Plosives
• 4 phases in its production:
1. Closing phase: articulator/articulators move
to form the stricture.
2. Compression phase: compressed air is
stopped from escaping.
3. Release phase: articulators used to form the
stricture are moved to allow air to escape.
4. Post-release phase: happens immediately
after phase 3.
 Plosives
Place of articulation
___________________________________
Bilabial Alveolar Velar
___________________________________

Voiceless p t k
Voiced b d g
Bilabial Plosives p,b
Alveolar Plosives t,d
Velar Plosives k, g
 Fricatives
• Air escapes through a narrow
passage and makes a hissing
sound.
• Are continuant consonants, unlike
plosives.
(Try with /s/ and /f/ to see the
importance of the narrow passage)
 Fricatives
Place of articulation
____________________________________________
Labiodental Dental Alveolar Post-Alveolar Glottal
____________________________________________

Voiceless f 8 s S h

Voiced v 5 z 2
Labiodental Fricatives f,v
Dental Fricatives 8, 5
Alveolar Fricatives s,z
Post-alveolar Fricatives S,2
Glottal h
 Affricates T,J
• Begin as plosives and end
as fricatives.
t + S = T post-alveolar, voiceless
d + 2 = J post-alveolar, voiced
 Nasals m,n,7
• Air escapes through the nose, not the
mouth
• The soft palate must be lowered
• Air is prevented by a complete closure in
the mouth at some point:
- lips: bilabial m
-tongue blade against alveolar ridgealveolar n
- tongue back against the soft palate  velar 7
(notes on 7 p.47)
 Lateral approximant I
• Air passage through the mouth
does not go on the usual way
along the centre of the tongue.
Because of the complete closure
between centre of the tongue and
the alveolar ridge, the air must
escape along sides of the tongue.
 Approximant r
• The articulators are close
but don’t touch
• Tip of tongue approaches
post-alveolar
 Approximants j,w
• Phonetically like vowels but phonologically
like consonants
• Phonetically: vowel-like character
j is the same as close front vowel [i] but short
w is the same as close back vowel [u] but short
• Phonologically: use them like consonants
- Only occur before vowel phonemes,
consonantal distribution: a year, a way
 Allophones
• Different realisations of
phonemes
• One can be substituted
for another without
changing the meaning
 Allophones
Ex: th in tea : realisation of t is aspirated
t in eat: realisation of t is unaspirated
• But both realisations are recognised as t
despite their differences
• 2 realisations are in complementary
distribution: aspirated realisation never
occurs in the same context with unaspirated
realisation  th and t are 2 allophones of
the phoneme t
 Transcription
• Use of symbols to represent sounds
• Phonemic transcription: in slant brackets//, consist
of 44 phonemes, vowels and diphthongs are in the
vowel quadrilateral, consonants in the chart or table
according to place of articulation, manner of
articulation and voicing.
• Phonetic transcription: in square brackets [ ], use a
much larger set of symbols to represent sounds
more accurately.
• Diacritics: marks to modify the symbol in some way
[a:] [aV ][aG ]
Diacritics
 Exercises
Do exercises 1,2 on page 30
Do exercise on page 37
Do exercise 1 on page 45
Do exercises 1,2 on page 55