English Phonetics and Phonology

2
Consonants

1. Places of Articulation
In order to form consonants, the airstream through the vocal tract must be obstructed
in some way. Consonants can therefore be classified according to the place and manner
of this obstruction. Some of the possible places of articulation are indicated by the
arrows going from one of the lower articulators to one of the upper articulators in Figure
2.1. The principal terms for these particular types of obstruction, all of which are
required in the description of English, follow.

Fig 2.1 Places of articulation : 1 Bilabial; 2 Labiodental; 3 Dental 4 Alveolar;

5 Retroflex; 6 Palato-Alveolar; 7 Palatal; 8 Velar.
Bilabial
(Made with the two lips.) Say words such as "pie, buy, my" and note how the lips come
together for the first sound in each of these words. Find a comparable set of words with
bilabial sounds at the end.

22
 English Phonetics and Phonology

Labiodental
(Lower lip and upper front teeth.) Most people when saying words such as "fie, vie" raise
the lower lip until it nearly touches the upper front teeth.
Dental
(Tongue tip or blade and upper front teeth.) Say the words "thigh, thy." Some people
have the tip of the tongue protruding below the upper front teeth, others have it close
behind the upper front teeth. Both these kinds of sounds are normal in English and both
may be called dental.
Alveolar
(Tongue tip or blade and the alveolar ridge.) Again there are two possibilities in English,
and you should find out which you use. You may pronounce words such as "tie, die,
nigh, sigh, zeal, lie" using the tip of the tongue or the blade of the tongue. Feel how you
normally make the alveolar consonants in each of these words, and then try to make
them in the other way.
Retroflex
(Tip of the tongue and the back of the alveolar ridge.) Many speakers of English do not
use retroflex sounds at all. But for some, retroflex sounds occur initially in words such as
"rye, row, ray." Note the position of the tip of your tongue in these words. Speakers who
pronounce r at the ends of words may also have retroflex consonants with the tip of the
tongue raised in " ire, hour, air."
Palato-Alveolar
(Tongue blade and the back of the alveolar ridge.) Say words such as "shy, she, show."
During the consonants the tip of your tongue may be down behind the lower front teeth,
or it may be up near the alveolar ridge, but the blade of the tongue is always close to the
back part of the alveolar ridge. Try saying "shipshape" with your tongue tip up on one
occasion, and down on another. Note the blade of the tongue will always be raised. You
may be able to feel the place of articulation more distinctly if you hold the position while
taking in a breath through the mouth. The incoming air cools the blade of the tongue and
the back part of the alveolar ridge.
Palatal
(Front of tongue and hard palate.) Say the name " Hugh" very slowly, so that you can
isolate the consonant at the beginning. If you say this consonant by itself you should be
able to feel that the front of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate. Try to hold the

23
 English Phonetics and Phonology

consonant position and breathe inwards through the mouth. You will probably be able to
feel the rush of cold air between the front of the tongue and the hard palate.
Velar
(Back of the tongue and soft palate.) The consonants that have the furthest back place of
articulation in English are those that occur at the end of "hack, hag, hang." In all these
sounds the back of the tongue is raised so that it touches the velum.
To get the feelings of different places of articulation, consider the consonant at the
beginning of each of the following words: "fee, theme; see, she." Say these consonants
by themselves. Are they voiced or voiceless? Now note that the place of articulation
moves back in the mouth in making this series of voiceless consonants, going from
labiodental, through dental and alveolar, to palato-alveolar. Try the same thing with the
consonants at the ends of "wing, win, whim." When you say these consonants by
themselves note whether the air is coming out through the mouth or the nose. In the
formation of these sounds the point of articulatory closure moves forward, from velar
through alveolar, to bilabial. The soft palate is lowered—there is no velic closure—so
that the air can come out through the nose.

Manner of Place of articulation

articulation
bilabial labio- dental alveolar retroflex palato- palatal velar glotal
dental alveolar

Nasal m n

Plosive p b t d k g

Fricative f v s z ∫ h

Approximant w r j

Lateral l

Affricates t∫, d

Table 2. A chart of the English consonants we have dealt with so far.

24
 English Phonetics and Phonology

Cách thức cấu âm

2. Manners of Articulation
At most places of articulation there are several basic ways in which articulation can
be accomplished. The articulators may completely close off the oral tract for an instant
or a relatively long period, they may narrow the space considerably, or they may simply
modify the shape of the tract by approaching each other.
Stop
(Complete closure of the articulators involved so that the airstream cannot escape
through the mouth/nose.) There are two possible types of stop.
Nasal stop (Nasal) If the air is stopped in the oral cavity but the soft palate is down so
that it can go out through the nose, the sound produced is a nasal stop. Sounds of this
kind occur at the beginning of the words "my" (bilabial closure) and "nigh" (alveolar
closure) and at the end of the word "sang" (velar closure). Figure 2.2 shows the position
of the vocal organs during the bilabial nasal stop in " my."
Oral stop (Plosive) If in addition to the articulatory closure in the mouth, the soft palate
is raised so that the nasal tract is blocked off, then the airstream will be completely
obstructed. Pressure in the mouth will build up and an oral stop will be formed. When
the articulators come apart the airstream will be released in a small burst of sound. This
kind of sound occurs in the consonants in the words "pie, buy" (bilabial closure), "tie,
dye" (alveolar closure), and "kye, guy" (velar closure). Figure 2.3 shows the positions of
the vocal organs in the bilabial stop in "buy." Apart from the presence of a velic closure,
there is no difference between this stop and the one in "my" shown in Figure 2.2.
Although both the nasal sounds and the oral sounds can be classified as stops, the term
stop by itself is almost always used by phoneticians to indicate an oral stop, and the term
nasal to indicate a nasal stop. Thus the consonants at the ends of the words "bad" and
"ban" would be called an alveolar stop and an alveolar nasal respectively.

Fig 2.2 The position of the vocal organs during the bilabial nasal in "my."

25
 English Phonetics and Phonology

Fig 2.3 The positions of the vocal organizing the bilabial stop in "buy".
Fricative
(Close approximation of two articulators so that the airstream is partially obstructed
and turbulent airflow is produced.) The mechanism involved in making these slightly
hissing sounds may be likened to that involved when the wind whistles around a corner.
The consonants in ''fie, vie" (labiodental). " thigh, thy" (dental), "sigh, zoo" (alveolar),
and "shy" (palato-alveolar) are examples of fricative sounds. Figure 2.4 illustrates one
pronunciation of the palato-alveolar fricative consonant in "shy." Note the narrowing of
the vocal tract between the blade of the tongue and the back part of the alveolar ridge.
The higher-pitched sounds with a more obvious hiss, such as those in "sigh, shy," are
sometimes called sibilants, and the others nonsibilants.

Fig 2.4 The positions of the vocal organs in the palato-alveolar fricative in "shy."
Approximant
(The approach of one articulator towards another, but without the tract being
narrowed to such an extent that a turbulent airstream is produced.) In saying the first

26
 English Phonetics and Phonology

sound in "yacht" the front of the tongue is raised toward the palatal area of the roof of the
mouth, but it does not come close enough for a fricative sound to be produced. The
consonants in the word "we" (approximation between the lips and in the velar region)
and, for some people, in the word "raw" (approximation in the alveolar region) are also
examples of approximants.
Lateral
(Obstruction of the airstream at a point along the center of the oral tract, with
incomplete closure between one or both sides of the tongue and the roof of the mouth.)
The sound at the beginning of the word "lip" is an alveolar lateral consonant. Say this
word and note the tongue position. You may be able to find out which side of the tongue
is not in contact with the roof of the mouth by holding the consonant position while you
breathe inward. The tongue will feel colder on the side that is not in contact with the roof
of the mouth.
Affricate
The production of some sounds involves more than one of these manners of
articulation. Say the word "cheap" and think about how you make the first sound. At the
beginning the tongue comes up to make contact with the alveolar ridge to form a stop
closure. This contact is then slackened so that there is a fricative at the same place of
articulation. This kind of combination of a stop immediately followed by a fricative is
called an affricate. There is a voiceless affricate at the beginning and end of the word
"church." The corresponding voiced affricate occurs at the beginning and end of "judge."
In all these sounds the articulators (tongue tip or blade and alveolar ridge) come together
for the stop, and then, instead of coming fully apart, separate only slightly, so that a
fricative is made at the same place of articulation. Try to feel these movements in, your
own pronunciation of these words.
Table 3. Summary of Manners of articulation

Phonetic term Brief description Symbols

Nasal Soft palate lowered so that air flows out through the nose; m, n,
complete closure of two articulation

Plosive Soft palate raised, forming a velic closure; complete closure p, b, t,.......
of two articulators

Fricative Narrowing of two articulators so as to produce a turbulent f, v, , ....

airstream

27
 English Phonetics and Phonology

Approximant Approximation of two articulators without producing a w, j, r, ....

turbulent airstream

Lateral With a central obstruction, so that air passes out at the side l

Trạng thái của ngạc mềm

3. State of the velum
In Unit 1 we noted that the velum (or soft palate) was the flexible extension to the
hard palate, and that it could be raised or lowered by muscle activity and thus separate
the oral from the nasal cavity, or link the two together. We saw that the velum had a part
to play in the initiation of the velaric ingressive airstream mechanism that is employed to
produce click sounds. The velum is also important in terms of speech segments. Later in
this chapter we will see how it is used as a place of articulation for consonants, but
before that we need to note a major distinction between different sound types that is
controlled by the velum.
As we have just noted, the velum can be raised or lowered. If the velum is raised
then the airflow (in egressive sounds, which is what we will concentrate on here) will
pass through the oral cavity only. Such sounds are termed 'oral' sounds, and the majority
of both vowels and consonants in the world's languages are oral sounds. If the velum is
lowered and, at same time, the airflow through the oral cavity is blocked by, for example,
closing the lips or pressing the body of the tongue up onto the hard palate then the air
will flow out through the nasal cavity alone. Such sounds are termed 'nasal' sounds (more
precisely 'nasal stops', see below), and the majority of the world's languages have a
number of such nasal sounds (as, for example, [m] and [n] in English).
However, a third possibility exists. The velum may be lowered and at the same time
airflow through the mouth is not blocked. This means that the egressive air will flow out
through the mouth and the nose together, giving a mixture of oral and nasal airflow. Such
sounds are termed 'nasalized sounds'. Nasalized vowels are quite common in the
languages of the world: French and Portuguese, for example, have nasalized vowels as
contrastive sounds. Even in English, vowels can be nasalized through part of their
articulation when followed by or preceded by nasal stops, though in this case the
resultant partially nasalized vowels do not constitute separate, contrastive, vowel sounds.

28
 English Phonetics and Phonology

Nasalized vowels are written in IPA as, for example, [ẽ, ã, ], where the 'tilde' over the
symbol denotes nasal airflow.

Fig 2.5. States of the velum

Can sounds such as [p], [b], [t] and [k], which involve a complete blockage in the
oral cavity be nasalized? As noted above, if there is a complete blockage in the oral
cavity, and the velum is fully lowered, then we get nasal sounds such as [m] and [n]. This
is because, as we describe in more detail below, [p], [b], [t], [k] and so on require a
build-up of air pressure in the mouth before the blockage in the oral cavity is removed. If
the velum is fully lowered, that build-up of air pressure is impossible, as the air escapes
through the nasal cavity. However, it is possible to produce with the velum lowered
slightly so that a certain amount of air pressure can still build up in the mouth. Such
slightly nasalized sounds can often be found in speakers with an inability (for a variety of
reasons) to raise the velum completely. Figure 2.5 illustrates the different states of the
velum

4. Force of articulation
Traditionally, phoneticians have divided consonants between the stronger or fortis
types, and the weaker or lenis ones. Voiceless sounds are generally fortis, and voiced are
lenis. But what are the phonetic characteristics that distinguish fortis from lenis sounds?
A traditional account would claim that fortis sounds have a greater muscular tension
throughout the vocal tract then lenis. This has proved difficult to measure objectively, so
some authorities are wary of using the distinction. However, one result of greater
muscular effort should be that fortis sounds should have a longer duration than lenis ones
(as more air is being pushed out of the lungs). This does seem to be borne out, not only
for stops, but also for fricatives. We will therefore use the terms fortis and lenis as well

29
 English Phonetics and Phonology

as voiced and voiceless in this book.

To summarize, the consonants we have been discussing so far may be described in

terms of five factors: (1) state of the vocal cords (voiced or voiceless) (it has been
discussed in the previous chapter); (2) place of articulation; (3) manner of articulation;
(4) force of articulation; (5) the state of the velum (oral or nasal). Thus the consonant at
the beginning of the word "sing" is a (1) voiceless, (2) alveolar, (3) fricative (4) fortis,
(5) oral, and the consonant at the end of "sing" is a (1) voiced, (2) velar, (3) nasal, (4)
lenis, (5) nasal stop.
On most occasions it is not necessary to state all these five points. Unless a specific
statement to the contrary is made, consonants are usually presumed to be central, not
lateral, and oral rather than nasal. Consequently points (4) and (5) may often be left out,
so that the consonant at the beginning of "sing" is simply called a voiceless alveolar
fricative. When describing nasals, point (3) has to be specifically mentioned and point
(5) can be left out, so that the consonant at the end of "sing" is simply called a voiced
velar nasal.

EXERCISES
A. Theory:
1. Classify all the English plosives, providing the words containing the sounds.
2. List the bilabial consonants. For each bilabial, provide one word containing it
3. What is the distinctive feature that makes /p/ and /b/ different sounds?
4. According to what are English consonants classified? Give examples
5. What is the difference between a plosive and an affricate in English?
6. What is the distinction between an alveolar plosive and an alveolar fricative?
7. Classify the English fricatives according to the criteria for classification of the
sounds. Give the words containing these consonants.
8. What is the main difference in articulation between a velar plosive and a bilabial
plosive?
9. What are fortis consonants and what are lenis ones? State the basic difference
between a fortis consonant and its lenis counterpart
10. What is the obstruction of the consonant /k/?
B. Practice:
1. Describe the consonants in the word "skinflint" using the chart below. Fill in all five
columns, and put parentheses around the terms that may be left out, as shown for the first
consonant.

30
 English Phonetics and Phonology

1 2 3 4 5
voiced or place of manner of oral or force of
voiceless articulation articulation nasal articulation
s voiceless alveolar fricative (oral) (fortis)
2. Figure a -g illustrates all the places of articulation we have discussed so far. In the
spaces provided below state (1) the place of articulation and (2) the manner of
articulation of each sound. In addition give (3) an example of an English word beginning
with the sound illustrated.

t d

31
 English Phonetics and Phonology

Fig a - g Sounds illustrating all the places of articulation discussed so far.

3. Studying a new subject often involves learning a large number of technical terms.
Phonetics is particularly difficult in this respect. Read over the definitions of the terms in
this chapter, and then try the exercises below. Listen to the sounds of the words, and be
careful not to be confused by spellings. Using a mirror may be helpful.
1. Circle the words that begin with a bilabial consonant:
mat knee sat bat rat pat
2. Circle the words that begin with a velar consonant:
knot got lot cot hot pot
3. Circle the words that begin with a labiodental consonant:
fat cat that mat chat vat
4. Circle the words that begin with an alveolar consonant:
zip nip lip sip tip dip
5. Circle the words that begin with a dental consonant:
pie guy shy thigh thy high

32
 English Phonetics and Phonology

6. Circle the words that begin with a palato-alveolar consonant:

sigh shy tie thigh thy lie
7. Circle the words that end with a fricative:
race wreath bush bring breathe bang
rave rouge ray rose rough
8. Circle the words that end with a nasal:
rain rang dumb deaf
9. Circle the words that end with a stop: (nasal, plosive)
pill lip lit limb crab dog hide laugh back
10. Circle the words that begin with a lateral:
nut lull bar rob one
11. Circle the words that begin with an approximant:
we you one run
12. Circle the words that end with an affricate:
much back edge ooze
4. Write the symbol that corresponds to each of the following phonetic descriptions; then
give an English word that contains this sound:
a. voiced bilabial plosive b
b. voiceless alveolar fricative s
c. voiceless labiodental fricative f
d. voiceless palato-alveolar affricate
e. voiceless palato-alveolar fricative
tʃ
f. voiced labiodental fricative
ʃ
v
g. voiced velar plosive g
5. The sequence of annotated diagrams below illustrates the actions that take place during
the consonants at the end of the word " branch." Fill in the blanks.

33
 English Phonetics and Phonology

Be Before the vowel ends the soft palate ______so

that air————————
At the end of the vowel the blade of the tongue
is raised to make contact with
___________________, preventing
air from___________________
The lips remain______
The vocal cords continue______

Then the______________is raised

and the___________of the tongue
is raised,
while the__________of the tongue
remains in the same place.
The lips become more___________.
The vocal cords______________.

The________remains______
throughout the end of the word.
After a short period the____________
moves downward, but the _______remains close
enough to the alveolar ridge to ______
The _____are___________
The vocal cords _________
References and further readings
Cornelia, H. & Schmitz, C (2005). Phonetics and Phonology: Reader for First Year
English Linguistics. University of Oldenburg
Ladefoged, P. (2015) A Course in Phonetics. Ed. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, Chapters 1, 2, 3.
Roach, P. (2013). English Phonetics and Phonology. 4th Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

34