Chapter 3 Consonants

PHONOLOGY (Lane 335)

Obstruent vs sonorant

Obstruents: airflow is restricted with articulators either in complete

closure or close approximation includes (stops, fricatives, & affricates) May be voiced or voiceless

Sonorants: there is no such restriction in the oral tract, or the nasal

tract is open (air has free passage through the vocal tract)

includes (nasals, liquids, & glides) Only voiced

Stops

A complete closure at the place of articulation Pulmonic egressive oral stops a.k.a

(plosives) Two types: oral and nasal Oral stops

Velum is raised Articulators are close enough (in different points)

to build pressure in the oral cavity. Airstream is released with a burst of sound

Stops

English has 3 pairs of voiceless/voiced stops:

1. bilabial [p, b]

2. alveolar [t, d]

3. velar [k, g] Glottal stop [ʔ] (- voice) There are palatal stops (Malayalam), uvular

(Quechua)

Stops

Ejectives: stops produced with glottalic egressive mechanism (the glottis closed then raised, the air above it pushed upwards, compressed & then released)

Implosives: involves glottalic airstream, but glottis is lowered

10% of the world languages have implosives

Click: involves velaric ingressive (dual closure in the oral tract)

Production of stops

Pulmonic egressive oral stops involve 3 stages:

1. Closing stage: when active articulator comes in contact with the passive one

2. Closure stage: when articulators remain in contact & air builds up behind the blockage

3. Release Stage: when active articulator is lowered allowing air to be released with some force

(the closing stage and/or release stage may be

missing)

The release stage

Nasal release: occurs when an oral stop precedes a nasal stop; e.g. ‘mutton’

Lateral release: occurs when an oral stop [t, d] precedes the lateral liquid [l]; tongue tip remains in contact with the alveolar ridge for the [l] & air is releases when sides of the tongue lower; e.g. ‘beetle’, ‘badly’

Aspiration

In ‘pie’, there is a puff of air following the [p] release (aspiration)

Indicated as [ph] For aspirated stops: vocal cord remain open after

the release of the plosive; 1st part of the vowel in ‘pie’ is produced without vibrating vocal cords

In English, aspiration occurs in –v stops at the beginning of stressed syllables

Words don’t contrast for aspiration in English

Voicing

Voiceless stops remain voiceless

Voicing is not always constant for voiced stops

Fully voiced between voiced sounds

Duration of the preceding segment decides whether the final stop is voiced or voiceless

when +v stops follows liquids, nasals, vowels, cause the sound to lengthen, e.g (back, bag)

Glottalisation and the glottal stop Voiceless stops in final position can be glottalised In some kinds of English, intervocalic voiceless

stops are glottalised, e.g. ‘super’ [ʔp] Voiceless stops may be replaced by a glottal stop

(before a nasal ‘a[ʔn]ight’, a homorganic obstruent ‘grea[ʔs]mile’.

Word final [t] may be [ʔ] as in ‘ra[ʔ]’ (‘rat’) Word-initial vowels can be glottals as in ‘it’s [ʔ ]over!’

Variation in stops

Assimilation: when a sound becomes similar to a neighboring sound; e.g, [t] & [d] assimilate to their context

‘ho[p p]otato’ instead of ‘hot potato’ & ‘ba[b b]oy’ instead of ‘bad boy’

Bilabials [p] & [b] remain bilabials Velars can be fronted; e.g. ‘kick’ & ‘cook’

Variation in stops Assimilation that involve manner: Flapping: the distinction between [t] & [d] is neutralized

between vowels ‘latter’ & across word boundary ‘get away’ They are replaced by a voiced alveolar flap transcribed as

[ɾ] For many Americans, ‘Adam’ & ‘atom’ may be homophones When the stop begins a stressed syllable, it’s not flapped,

as in ‘attend’

In some English, ’t’ becomes ‘r’ when occurring after a short vowel & the next sound is a vowel; ‘lo [r] of fun’

Affricates

An affricate is a stop with an extended and controlled fricative phase following the obstruction

a combination of stop + fricative):

ʧ = voiceless post-alveolar affricate; ‘chin’

ʤ = voiced post-alveolar affricate; ‘jaguar’

Fricatives

As the air exits, it’s forced through a narrow passage between the articulators resulting in friction

Think of friction

Airstream partially obstructed

Other languages have velar, bilabial, uvular & pharyngeal fricatives

Distribution

[f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ] occur in all positions [ð] word-initial is restricted to a small set of

function words (the, that…)

[ʒ] occurs in a few words, e.g, (treasure) & never word initially

[h] occurs only word initially or word-medially.

Voicing

Fricatives may be voiceless or voiced.

+ voice fricatives may undergo devoicing word-initially & word-finally

Voiced fricatives lengthen the duration of any sonorant they follow ‘face’ & ‘phase’

Variation in fricatives

[f] & [v] don’t show assimilation [v] becomes voiceless word-finally preceding

a voiceless obstruent as in ‘ha[f] to’ In faster speech, a sound may be lost in

unstressed function words (elision), e.g ‘piece of cake’

[θ, ð] might be deleted when precede [s, z] as in ‘clothes’ & ‘months’

Variation in fricatives

In some English, [θ, ð] may be replaced by [f, v]; ‘three’ & ‘free’ sound identical

in some other varieties, word initial [θ, ð] may be replaced by [s]; e.g. ([s]ousand)

Word initial [ð] assimilates entirely to a preceding alveolar sound as in; ‘I [z z] ere any food?’

Variation in fricatives

[s, z] often assimilate to a following palatal glide [j], or palato-alveolar fricative [ʃ] as in; (‘mi [ʃ j]ou’) & ‘it wa [ʒ j] ellow’

[h] is dropped by all speakers in unstressed pronouns & auxiliaries such as ‘her’, ‘him’

In words like ‘human’ & ‘huge’, there may be no [h]

Nasals

Velum is lowered allowing air into the nasal cavity

Only voiced (sonorants) In English:- Bilabial [m]- Alveolar [n] - Velar [ŋ]

Distribution & Variation

[m] & [n] occur in all positions [ŋ] cannot occur word initially in English There is alternation between [ŋ] & [n] for the

inflection ‘-ing’ which may be [ɪn] or [ɪŋ] [m] may be labio-dental before labio-dental

fricatives [f] & [v] as in ‘some fun’ [n] assimilates to the following segment as in

‘i[m p]aris’

Liquids

refers to ‘l’ & ‘r’ (laterals or rhotics) produced with free airflow, but with some

obstruction in the oral tract Liquids are sonorants (+ voice)

Laterals

There is contact between the active articulator (central of the tongue) & the passive articulator (roof of the mouth)

English has ‘l’ in ‘lion’

Distribution & Variation

[l] occur in all positions After voiceless obstruent, [l] is devoiced as in

‘play’ [l] is velarised in final position, before a

consonant & syllabically (dark ‘l’) as in ‘ fill’ & ‘film’& ‘bottle’

Non-velarised version is known as (clear ‘l’) & occurs word initially

Rhotics

Rhotics include:

1. The alveolar trill [r]2. The alveolar tap [ɾ]3. The alveolar continuant [ɹ]4. The retroflex [ɻ]5. The uvular roll [R] or fricative [ʁ]

They are grouped together in terms of phonology, not phonetics

Distribution

Non-rhotic accents: rhotic was lost post-vocalically (i.e. word finally or before a consonant)

Rhotic accents: have rhotics in all words ‘linking ‘r’’: [r] is pronounced before a vowel, across

word boundaries, & within words

(‘far away’, ‘soar’ vs. ‘soaring’ ‘intrusive ‘r’’: the occurrence in non-rhotic accents

of a word- final rhotic which is absent in spelling as in ‘tuna [r] alert’

Variation Rhotics are devoiced following voiceless stops as in

‘pray’

Following [t] & [d], the rhotic will be fricativised as in ‘tree’ & ‘dream’

The continuant rhotic may become a tap between vowels as in ‘very’& after [θ] & [ð] as in ‘three’

There may be a degree of lip rounding with the rhotic

Glides

They are more like vowels in articulation (semi-vowels)

They don’t from syllabic nuclei like consonants (appear at the edge of a syllable)

English has 2 glides:

1. Palatal [j] as in ‘yes’

2. Labial-velar [w] as in ‘weigh’

Distribution

English [j] appears in word-initial position In word-initial clusters, [j] is restricted to

appear before the vowels [uː] & [ʊə]; e.g. (mute, pure)

The labial-velar [w] appears word initially English doesn’t allow [w] after consonants

other than [t], [d], [k], [s], [θ] May follow [g] in some loanwords like

‘Gwynneth’

Variation

[j] varies according to the following vowel; higher before high vowels (‘[j]east’) & lower before low vowels as in (‘[j]ak’)

[w] & [j] are devoiced after –voice obstruents; e.g (twilight)