Consonants (cont.

)
•Nasal & other consonants (chapter 7)
• Syllabic consonants (chapter 9)
Nasals – âm mũi
• In nasals, the air escapes through the nose. It is
prevented to pass through the mouth by a complete
closure at some points.
• Nasals: sounds produced by stopping the air
completely in the mouth, at the same time, the
velum is lowed to let the air escapes by the nose (the
air continues to escape: continuant sounds)
• There are three types of closure (places of
articulation):
▫ Voiced, bilabial, nasal [m]
▫ Voiced, alveolar, nasal [n]
▫ Voiced, velar, nasal [ŋ] (called eng)
Nasals – âm mũi
• When we find the letter ‘nk’ in the middle of a word in its
orthographic form (=spelling), a [k] will always be pronounced.
▫ E.g.: ankle [æŋkl]
• However, some words with orthographic ‘ng’ in the middle will
have either a pronunciation containing [ŋɡ] or a [ŋ] without [ɡ].
▫ E.g.: finger[fɪŋɡә] but singer [sɪŋә]
anger [æŋɡә] but hanger [hæŋә]
• The difference is in their morphology – the way the words are
constructed. ‘singer’ and ‘ hanger’ can be divided into two
grammatical pieces (which is called “morphemes”) ‘sing-er’ and
‘hang-er’. While ‘finger’ and ‘anger’ consist of just one
morpheme each.
• We can say [ŋ] will go without [ɡ] if it occurs at the end of a
morpheme, and [ŋ] with [ɡ] if it occurs in the middle of a
morpheme.
Nasals – âm mũi
• Exception:
▫ long + -er → longer
[lɒŋ] [lɒŋɡә]
(end of a
morpheme)

▫ long + -est → longest

[lɒŋ] [lɒŋɡәst]
(end of a
morpheme)

• [ŋ] rarely occurs after a diphthong or long vowel.

Similarity and Differences b/w Plosives and
Nasals
• Similarity: same place of articulation, /p, b, m/ bilabial; /t,
d, m/ alveolar; /k, g, ŋ / velar
• Differences:
1. Plosives: Oral : air escapes by mouth
+ Velum raised
+ Voiced and Voiceless
+ Stop
2. Nasal: air escapes by the nose
+ Velum lowered
+ Voiced
+ Continuant
Characteristics of Nasals
1. /m, n/: at all position (name; member; claim)
2. / ŋ /: never at initial position and after a long vowel/diphthong
3. /n ŋ /: before velars /k, g/. E.g. : bank /bæŋk/
4. Pronunciation of –ng:
▫ sing /siŋ/
▫ Sing-er /siŋә/
▫ Finger /fiŋɡә/
 /ŋ/: final position of a morpheme. E.g.: strong /strɒŋ /; singer /siŋә/
 / ŋ g/:
 in the middle of a morpheme. E.g.: finger /fiŋɡә/
 in comparative/superlative of ADJ in –ng
5. Nasalization: at final position, nasals nasalize the preceding vowel,
diphthong
Other consonants
• The next 4 consonants we need to study can be
found in this phrase:
Your whirlies
• They are: /j/, /r/, /w/, /l/
• Please note that in American English the /r/
sound would be transcribed as /ɹ/.
Approximants – âm cận
• An approximant is the articulation in which the
articulators approach each other but do not get
close enough to produce a “complete” consonant.
• There are two kinds of English approximant:
▫ Lateral approximant [l]
▫ Post-alveolar approximant [r]
Lateral approximant – phụ âm bên
• During the production of this sound, there is a complete
closure along the centre of the tongue and the roof of the
mouth, and the air escapes along the sides of the tongue.
• The realization of [l] before vowel sounds is quite
different from that in other contexts.
E.g: lea [liː] eel [iːl]
clear [l]: dark [ɫ]:
the front of the tongue the back of the tongue
raised raised
• Clear [l] only occurs before vowels while dark [ɫ] never occurs
before vowels → they are allophones of the phoneme /l/ in
complementary distribution.
• Another allophone: when [l] follows [p, k] at the beginning of a
stressed syllable, it is devoiced (without voicing found in other
allophones). E.g. : play [plei]
Post-alveolar approximant
• To make this sound, the tip of the tongue approaches the
alveolar area but never makes contact.
• Make a long [r] to feel this.
• The tongue curled backwards with the tip raised; consonants
with this tongue shape is called retroflex. (âm uốn lưỡi)
• Voiceless fricative [r] is found at the beginning of a syllable if it is
preceded by [p, t, k] – Devoiced [r] after [p,t,k]
▫ E.g.: press [pres], cress [kres], train [trein]
• [r] only occurs before vowels . Otherwise, it is silent.
▫ E.g.: red [red] but hard [hɑːd]
hearing [hɪәring] but cares [keәz]
• American and Scottish, which have the [r] sound in final position
accents, are called rhotic accents. E.g.: car [kɑ:r ]
• Accents in which [r] only occurs before vowels (British English)
are called non-rhotic. E.g.: car [kɑ: ]
Semivowels – bán nguyên âm
• The consonants [j] and [w] are voiced continuant consonants.
• They are phonetically like vowels but phonologically like
consonants.
▫ Phonetically speaking, [j] is similar in articulation with [i] and
[w] is similar in articulation with [u]. If you make the initial
sounds of ‘yet’ and ‘wet’ very long, you will be able to hear this.
▫ But, phonologically, they are used as consonants and only
appear before vowels.
• They lose their voicing & become fricative when follow [p, t, k]-
devoiced after initial [p,t,k]. E.g. : twin [twin]

E.g.: lay [leɪ] play [pleɪ]

ray [reɪ] tray [treɪ]
wick [wɪk] quick [kwɪk]
you [ju:] cue [kju:]
(chart of English consonant phonemes)
Syllabic consonants –
phụ âm có âm tiết tính
• There are cases where no vowel is found in unstressed
syllables. Standing in the “middle” of such syllables is a
consonant . Those are syllabic consonants, indicated by [ˌ]
under the phoneme.(Consonant that stands for a vowel
in a weak syllable).
• Syllabic consonants includes [l], [n], [m], [ŋ] and [r].

(video clip: Syllabic consonants)

Syllabic [l]
• It is the most noticeable syllabic consonant.
• If the preceding consonant is an alveolar, lateral
release happens, in which the sides of the tongue are
lowered to allow air to escape. The tip and blade of the
tongue do not move until the articulatory contact for [l] is
released. The [l] is now a dark [ɫ].
• Syllabic [l̩ ] occurs when a word ends with ‘le’
E.g.:
Syllabic [l]
→ Syllabic [l̩ ] also appears in ‘al’, ‘el’, ‘ial’, ‘iel’ which is
preceded by a consonant.

E.g.:
Syllabic [n]
→ Syllabic The is the most important syllabic nasal. It is
usually found after plosives [t, d] and fricatives [s, z].

E.g.:

→ Syllabic does not occur after [l, t∫, dʒ]; thus,

Syllabic [n]
• [n] after non-alveolar consonants:
▫ velar (spelling ‘an’ or ‘on’): non-syllabic
 wagon [ˈwæɡən]
▫ bilabial: 2 ways of pronouncing
 ribbon [ˈrɪbən] or
▫ labiodental: is more common than [ən]
 heaven
• Two consonants precede [n]
▫ [l] and plosive: 2 ways
 Wilton [wɪltən] or
▫ [s] and plosive
 Boston [bɒstən]
▫ nasal – plosive – nasal (when the alveolars are preceded
by a nasal): non-syllabic
 lantern [ˈlæntən]

Syllabic [m, ŋ]
• Those are not important, which can only be found in
assimilation and elision processes:
▫ broken key

Syllabic [r]
• Common in rhotic accents but not in BBC pronunciation.
▫ particular [pəˈtɪkjələ] (BBC speaker) (American)
▫ preference (only case in BBC English)