Consonant Sounds

Name : Maulida Hanifah Erlian Putri

NIM : 126203211044
Class : TBI 1A

A. Describing Consonants
Consonants involve some constriction of air flow. Linguists describe consonant sounds
we use 3 criteria:
a. Voicing
Voicing or state of the glottis refers to what the vocal folds are doing when air passes
through open vocal folds we call these voiceless sounds when air passes through
vibrating vocal folds we call these voiced sounds you can feel the difference between
voiced and voiceless sounds by putting your hand on neck. So produce these two
sounds in succession [s] and [z]. Sounds [z] that produces a vibration so it's a voiced
sound whereas [s] does not produce the vibration so it's a voiceless sound

b. Place of Articulation
Refers to where in the vocal tract the constriction of air flow takes place.
Bilabial sounds are produced with both lips like [p] [b] [m]. Maybe Labiodental
sounds are produced with the upper teeth and the lower lip such as [f] [v]. Interdental
sounds are produced with the tongue in between the upper and lower teeth such as
[th]. Alveolar sounds are produced with the tongue at or near the ridge right behind
the upper front teeth such as [t] [d] [s]. Palatal sounds are produced at the hard palate
or the roof of the mouth such as [sh] [z] [y]. Velar sounds are produced at the vellum
or soft palate such as [k] [g]. And Glottal Sounds are produced at the glottis or the
space between the vocal folds such as [h].
c. Manner of Articulation
Refers to how the air flow is constricted in the vocal tract. Stop sounds result from a
complete constriction of airflow followed by a release of that air such as [p] [t] [k] [b]
[d] [g]. Fricative are sounds produced when the tongue approaches but does not make
 contact with a place of articulation causing a bottleneck of the airflow and this gives
the sound a friction like quality such as [v] [th] [z] [sh]. Affricate result from a
sequence of stop plus fricative in rapid succession the Affricate [ʤ] results from [d]
plus [sh]. Nasal sounds are produced when the velum is lowered allowing air to pass
through the nasal cavity such as [m] [n]. Liquid sounds are produced by allowing air
to pass by one or both sides of the tongue and the tongue itself can move a lot to
shape the sound such as [l] [ɹ]. Glide sounds are produced with very little constriction
of airflow so little in fact that they are often referred to as semivowels such as [w] [y].
And Tap sounds involve a rapid flick of the tongue to some place of articulation. In
North American English only have one tap and that's at the alveolar Ridge. The tap
sound in the word butter where we write it with two T in English that the tongue is
producing a tap sound there rather than a full stop or plosives sound so in North
American English you say butter [bɅɾɹ] as compared to in received pronunciation
where you say butter [bʌtɹ] that involves a full stop.

B. How to Describe Consonants

These three criteria for describing consonant sounds that are Voicing, Place of
Articulation, and Manner of Articulation. For example: [b] book is considered a voiced
bilabial stop. [s] is a voiceless alveolar fricative.