¡Descarga jkhvfluhfvli y más Ejercicios en PDF de Ciencias de la Educación solo en Docsity!
ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY: CONSONANTS
OUTLINE
1. CONSONANTS
1.1. Definition 1.2. Classification 1.2.1. Areas of articulation 1.2.2. Manners of articulation 1.2.3. Voiced and voiceless, fortis and lenis. 1.2.4. Other terms 1.3. Description
- /p/ - /f/ - /S/ - /n/
- /b/ - /v/ - /Z/ - /N/
- /t/ - /T/ - /h/ - /l/
- /d/ - /D/ - /tS/ - /r/
- /k/ - /s/ - /dZ/ - /w/
- /g/ - /z/ - /m/ - /j/ 1.4. Areas of difficulty and use of consonants: priorities for Spanish speakers
- Phonemic contrasts. - Voiced/voiceless contrasts in ‘-ed’ and ‘-s’.
- Consonant clusters. - Weakening of affricates into fricatives.
- Aspiration. - /h/ dropping.
- Force of articulation of lenis consonants. - Nasal plosions.
- Devoicing. - Velar nasal.
- Voiced plosives into fricatives. - Dark ‘l’.
- Dental /t/ and /d/. - Varieties of ‘r’ and orthography.
- Weakening of intervocalic /t/. - /j / articulation and use.
- Glottalisation. - /w/ articulation.
- Incomplete plosion of final voiceless plosives.
1. CONSONANTS
1.1. Definition
Consonants are sounds that involve some type of complete obstruction or constriction (narrowing) of the oral tract so that the air can not flow out of the mouth freely. From an articulatory point of view the main difference between vowels and consonants is that in the production of the former the air passes more or less freely through the oral tract, whereas in the production of the latter the passing of the air is impeded in some way or another and, as a consequence, can not
escape freely. If we analyse the distinction between vowels and consonants, from a phonological point of view we must say that vowels can be peaks of syllables, and that consonants can not (with the exception of syllabic consonants: that is, being the coda or last element of a syllable, a consonant –normally /l/ or /n/- can become the peak of the syllable if the previous vowel
disappears, as in “middle “ [»mIdl] and “rotten” [»rÅtn] ).
1.2. Classification
Consonants are best classified in terms of the approximate area where the obstruction takes place, the way organs interact to produce a consonant sound (the nature of the obstruction), and of the presence or absence of voice (vibration of the vocal folds). See the table below:
- post-alveolar articulation
Source: Roach, P., 2000, English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Course , 3rd^ edition, CUP, p. 65.
1.2.1. Area of articulation
Area or place of articulation is the description of where the obstruction occurs in the vocal tract. Identification of the different points of articulation used to describe and classify consonants depends mainly on the passive organs involved, rather than on the role of an active organ (which may be the tip /T/, blade /s/, front /tS/ or back /k/ of the tongue, or the lower lip /f/). There are eight
relevant areas of articulation:
organs does not occur in an abrupt way but it becomes a slower process, giving some time for the air to produce a frication when passing through. Affricates are: /tS, dZ/.
d) Lateral. There is only one lateral phoneme, being produced by placing the tip of the tongue on the alveolar ridge and by leaving at the same time both sides of the mouth unblocked so that the air can escape freely. The lateral phoneme is /l/.
e) Nasals. For the production of nasal consonants the soft palate (uvula) must be separated from the back wall of the pharynx and an obstruction must be made at some point within the oral tract, in this way forcing the air to escape through the nose. Nasals are: /m, n, N/.
f) Approximants. Technically, approximants can be termed glides , that is, transitions from an articulatory position to another articulatory position. From a physiological perspective, approximants (or “frictionless continuants”) are vowel-like because there is no obstruction or narrowing involved in their production. From a phonological point of view they are consonant-like as they can not be peaks of syllables. Approximants are: /r, j, w/.
1.2.3. Voiced and voiceless, fortis and lenis
Voiced consonants are those in which there is an additional vibration of the vocal folds /b, d,
g, v, D, z, Z, dZ, l, m, n, N, r, j, w/, voiceless are those in which there is not such vibration /p, t, k, f,
T, s, S, tS/. As it is rather difficult to memorise which consonants belong to each category, students
should be best advised to try to identify if consonants are voiced or voiceless just by noticing the absence or presence of the vibration of the vocal cords (for instance, with the use of their finger being pressed on the Adam’s apple).
Traditionally, consonants have also been classified into fortis and lenis. This classification is related with the inherent “force” associated to consonants, voiceless being more “powerful”, fortis ; and voiced being articulated in a softer way, lenis. But this is not the case in all contexts, especially for the second category; all voiceless consonants are fortis , but not all voiced consonants are lenis. There are cases where voiced consonants suffer a process of “devoicing”, that is to say, they lose their voice partially or totally (e.g., the final fricative in “was” /w´z/), but the consonant is still
articulated as a lenis (with softer force of articulation) and never as a voiceless- fortis.
1.2.4. Other terms
Grouping consonants in terms of their similar characteristics may result in a different classification. This is why we can classify consonants into obstruents (when an oral obstruction or constriction occurs): plosives, fricatives, and affricates; and sonorants (when the vocal tract is more
open with freer air flow): nasals, approximants, and vowels. And also, we talk of sibilants : /s/, /z/, /S/,
/Z/; and of liquids : laterals and any type of /r/ sound.
1.3. Description
In this section we will describe consonants in terms of the presence or absence of “voice”, their point of articulation, and the way they are articulated, together with the spellings commonly used to represent them. We must not forget that articulation characteristics and letter combinations are the essential aspects to be covered in describing the English consonant system. Later, in the following section, we will pay attention to the most relevant features teachers need to have into account when working with consonants with Spanish speakers.
PLOSIVES
- / p / voiceless bilabial plosive :
- Spellings: normally represented by the letter ‘p’ , with some exceptions (“shepherd” /»Sep´d/). It
is silent in “pneumonia” /nju˘»m´UnI´/, “psalm” /sA˘m/, “raspberry” /»rA˘zbri/, “cupboard” /k√b´d/).
- / b / voiced bilabial plosive :
- Spellings: represented by letter ‘b’. Silent in “climb” /klaIm/, “tomb” /tu˘m/, “dumb” /d√m/,
“doubt” /daUt/, “subtle” /»s√tl/.
- / t / voiceless alveolar plosive :
- Spellings: normally represented by letter ‘t’ , but not always (e.g., “Thames” /»temz/ or ‘–ed’ after
voiceless consonants except ‘t’, as in “talked” /tç˘kt/, “stopped” /stÅpt/, “coughed” /kÅft/, “opposed” /´»p´Ust/, “crashed” /krQSt/). It can be silent in “listen” /»lIsn/, “castle” /»kA˘sl/, “mustn’t” /»m√snt/, “next day” /»neks deI/, “postman” /»p´Usm´n/, “most people” /»m´Us pi˘pl/.
- Varieties: it may get lateralised (“little” /»lItl/), nasalised (“eaten” /»i˘tn/), dentalised (“eighth” /eItT/),
and have a post-alveolar articulation (“try” /traI/).
- / v / voiced labiodental fricative :
- Spellings: ‘v’ (“value” /»vQlju˘/), depending on the speaker ‘ph’ (“Stephen” /»sti˘vn/), and ‘f’ in “of”
/´v/.
- / T / voiceless dental fricative :
- Spellings: represented by ‘th’ in content/lexical words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) as in “theory” /»TI´ri/, “author” /»ç˘T´/, “cloth” /klÅT/.
- / D / voiced dental fricative :
- Spellings: also represented by ‘th’ but, in this case, in structural/functional words (articles, demonstratives, conjunctions, etc.), as in “the” /D´/, “this” /DIs/, “then” /Den/. It can be represented by ‘th’ in final position of some content/lexical words (“smooth” /smu˘D/, “with” /wID/ –but not in standard American English where they are pronounced with /T/), when followed by mute –e (“bathe” /beID/, “breathe” /bri˘D/), and in plurals provided ‘th’ follows a long vowel or diphthong (“baths” /bA˘Dz/, “mouths” /maUDz/).
- / s / voiceless alveolar fricative :
- Spellings: ‘s’ (“sink” /sINk/), ‘-s’ preceded by a voiceless sound (“takes” /teIks/, “stops” /stÅps/,
“completes” /k´m»pli˘ts/, “laughs” /lA˘fs/), ‘sc’ (“science” /saI´ns/), ‘c’ (“cigar” /sI»gA˘/), ‘-se’ in nouns and adjectives (“course” /kç˘s/, “dense” /dens/), ‘ss’ (“assist” /´»sIst/). Silent in “island” /»aIé´nd/, “isles” /aIéz/, “aisle” /aIl/”.
- / z / voiced alveolar fricative :
- Spellings: ‘z’ (“zoo” /zu˘/, “realize” /rI´»éaIz/), ‘zz’ (“jazz” /dZQz/, “dizzy” /»dIzi/”), ‘-s’ when preceded
by a voiced sound (“friends” /frendz/, “pens” /penz/, “lives” /éIvz/, “bags” /bQgz/, “plays” /pleIz/), ‘-se’ in verbs (“use” /ju˘z/, “cleanse” /kli˘nz/), ‘ss’ (“dissolve” /dI»zÅlv/, “scissors” /»si˘z´z/).
- / S / voiceless palatoalveolar fricative :
- Spellings: ‘sh’ (“shoe” /Su˘/, “dash” /dQS/), ‘si’ preceded by consonant (“pension” /»penSn/”), ‘sci’
(“conscious” /»kÅnS´s/), ‘ci’ (“suspicious” /s´s»pIS´s/, “magician” /m´»dZIS´n/”), ‘ti’ (“nation” /»neISn/,
“differentiate” /«dIf´»renSIeIt/), ‘s’ (“sugar” /»SUg´/, “sure” /SU´/), and ‘ch’ in words of French origin (“champagne” /S´m»peIn/, “machine” /m´»Si˘n/, “chivalry” /»SIv´lri/).
- / Z / voiced palatoalveolar fricative :
- Spellings: ‘z’ (“seizure” /»si˘Z´/), ‘s’ when between vowels (“pleasure” /»pleZ´/, “usually” /»ju˘ZU´li/,
“vision” /»vIZ´n/”), ‘si’ when preceded by a vowel (“conclusion” /k´n»klu˘Z´n/, “occasion” /´»keIZ´n/), ‘-ge’ in words of French origin (“beige” /beIZ/, “camouflage” /»kQm´flA:Z/, “prestige” /pes»ti˘Z/), and ‘ge-‘ only in “genre” /»ZA˘nr´/.
- / h / voiceless glottal fricative :
- Spellings: ‘h’ (“hero” /»hIr´U/, “inherent” /In»hI´r´nt/), ‘wh’ (“who” /hu˘/, “whole” /h´Ul/”). Silent in
“hour” /aU´/, “honest” /»ÅnIst/, “heir” /e´/, “annihilate” /´»naI´leIt/, “vehicle” /»vi˘Ikl/, “Tottenham” /»tÅtn´m/, “Durham” /»d√r´m/.
- Varieties: it becomes voiced [˙] when surrounded by voiced sounds (“behind” /bI»haInd/,
“perhaps” /p´»hQps/, “ahead” /´»hed/, “then he…” /»Den hi˘/).
AFFRICATES
- / tS / voiceless palatoalveolar affricate :
- Spellings: ‘ch’ (“cheap” /tSi˘p/, “church” /tSŒ˘tS/, “arch /A˘tS/), ‘tch’ (“pitch” /pItS/, “scratch”
/skrQtS/), ‘-ture’ (“culture” /»k√ltS´/, “future” /»fju˘tS´/), also present in “righteous” /»raItS´s/, “concerto” /k´n»tSŒ˘t´U/”.
- / dZ / voiced palatoalveolar affricate :
- Spellings: ‘j’ (“jewel” /»dZu˘´l/, “adjust” /´d»dZ√st/), ‘g’ before ‘e, i, y’ (“gem” /dZem/, “gist” /dZIst/,
“gypsy” /»dZIpsi/), ‘dg’ (“edge” /edZ/), also in “soldier” /»sÅldZ´/, “procedure” /pr´»si˘dZ´/, “grandeur” /»grQndZ´/.
APPROXIMANTS
- / r / voiced post-alveolar approximant :
- Spellings: in standard British English it is represented by ‘r’ or ‘rr’ only before a vowel (“rest” /rest/, “arrive” /´»raIv/, “carry” /»kQri/, “car and…” /»kA˘ r ´n/) and never after a vowel; in standard American English, on the contrary, ‘r’ is pronounced in all positions, including final ones, although in a different way as in this case the tongue is bunched backwards to give way to what is known as retroflection.
- / j / voiced palatal approximant :
- Spellings: ‘y’ (“yes” /jes/, “yawn” /jç˘n/), ‘i’ (“behaviour” /bI»heIvj´/, “companion” /k´m»pQnj´n/),
‘e’ (“hideous” /»haIdj´s/), and forming part of the sequence /ju:/ in ‘u’ (“university” /ju˘nI»vŒ˘sIti/), ‘ue’ (“Tuesday” /»tju˘zdeI/), ‘ui’ (“nuisance” /»nju˘s´ns/), ‘ew’ (“dew” /dju˘/) and ‘eu’ (“Europe” /»ju˘r´p/); however, it is not present after /tS/ (“chew” /tSu˘/), /dZ/ (“juice” /dZu˘s/), /r/ (“rude” /ru˘d/, “fruit” /fru˘t/, “grew” /gru˘/, “true” /tru˘/), and consonant + /l/ (“blue” /blu˘/, “flew” /flu˘/). In standard American English the sequence /ju:/ is pronounced as /u:/ in all these cases (except ‘u’: “university”).
- / w / voiced bilabial velar approximant :
- Spellings: represented by ‘w’ (“waste” /weIst/, “twelve” /»twelv/, “Gwen” /gwen/), ‘wh’ (“what”
/wÅt/, “why” /waI/), ‘qu’ (“quite” /kwaI/, “queen” /kwi˘n/), ‘gu’ (“language” /»lQNgwIdZ/, “anguish” /»QNgwIS/). Also present in “choir” /kwaI´/, “one” /w√n/, “suite” /swi˘t/, “suede” /sweId/. Silent in “who” /hu˘/, “wrist” /rIst/, “sword” /sç˘d/, “answer” /»A˘ns´/, “Harwich” /»hQrItS/, “Berwick” /»berIk/.
1.4. Areas of difficulty and use of consonants: priorities for Spanish speakers
Consonants are essential elements of speech, we could say they form the skeleton of the sound structure of words and utterances. There is such amount of change in the production of vowels, due to their reduction in duration and even in quality (reduction to schwa ), and to their accentual variation, that consonants remain as the key reference for sound organization and structuring. It is also true that there are changes in the production of consonants in different accents, but these changes are unimportant when compared with those of vowels and do not have a dramatic impact on intelligibility. This is the reason why consonants deserve a prior treatment in
teaching the phonology of English. From now on we will focus on those specific aspects of consonant production that really cause difficulties to Spanish speakers:
- Phonemic contrasts. The most obvious problematic area when dealing with consonants is related to phoneme substitution, specifically with consonants which they do not possess in their phonetic and phonological inventory: - Spanish speakers find difficulties with English /b/-/v/ as Spanish only possesses the phoneme /b/. Moreover, Spanish vary from the plosive [b] to the fricative [B] when attempting English /b/-/v/, producing a plosive in initial and final positions (“boy”, “cab”) but a fricative in intervocalic contexts (“obey”, “avenue”). - /D/ becomes a problematic sound in word-initial position (“the”, “this”) as it is only found in Spanish in intervocalic contexts (“lado”). - /Z/ is highly problematic because of its intrinsic articulatory difficulty for Spanish speakers and, additionally, because it is normally produced as a fortis /S/. - /h/ becomes a problem for Castilian speakers of Spanish, who produce an exaggeratedly strong version, but not for Andalusian speakers from, for example, Córdoba or Málaga, who do have it in their phonetic and phonological inventory.
- Consonant clusters. When initially , the most problematic consonant clusters are those beginning with ‘-s’ as Spanish speakers tend to insert a vowel right before the ‘s’ (“Spain” */espeIn/). When finally , consonant clusters are problematic if involving a sequence of plosive + plosive. This is so because Spanish speakers tend to articulate the two plosives fully, when, in fact, in the articulation of the first one the third stage (the “explosive” stage) is missing. The organs maintain the closure for the first plosive (with no release) until the closure of the second plosive has already been made, in this way, when the organs separate the only explosion we hear is that of the second plosive. This is a crucial aspect because the pronunciation of ‘-ed’ may cause a great deal of problems to speakers, who try to pronounce the two plosives (“stopped” /stÅpt/, “talked” /tç˘kt/, “robbed” /rÅbd/, “unplugged” /«√n»pl√gd/) “completely” while they should be keeping the closure for /p/, /k/, /b/ and /g/ (with lips pressed together for /p/ and /b/ and the back part of the tongue pressed on the soft palate for /k/ and /g/, and no explosion, then) and producing an explosion only for /t/ and /d/. If three plosives appear together (“stopped crying” /stÅpt kraIIN/), then the second one (/t/ in this example) is automatically suppressed and the other two behave in the same way as stated above.
tip of the tongue behind the upper teeth, as they are in Spanish. A problem which must be handled carefully as many native speakers of English, specially from northern areas in England, articulate these two consonants dentally, in a similar way as they are articulated in Spanish.
- Weakening of intervocalic / t /. The articulation of /t/ between vowels may be weakened and
become a “flap” (the tip of the tongue touches the alveolar ridge once, [R]) in a way which resembles quite a lot the articulation of Spanish “vibrante simple” /r/, as in “caro, pero”). This process can be found at word boundaries (“get out”) in standard British English and standard American English but normally only word-internally in American English (“water”, “little”). It becomes a problematic area for Spanish speakers in terms of perception (their comprehension ability) as it may provoke unsuccessful recognition of words.
- Glottalisation. There is a wide-spreading tendency in standard British English in using glottal stops [/]. They are mainly used to: a) reinforce voiceless plosive consonants (“topping” /»tÅ/pIn/, “football” /»fU/tbç˘l/, “breakfast” /»bre/kf´st/); b) substitute voiceless plosive consonants in colloquial or regional, for example Cockney, accentual variants (“drop it” /drÅ/ I//, “dark night” /dA˘/ naI//). Although it is not s problematic area in terms of production, as it is not advisable to teach students to incorporate them, it may be a source of confusion in word recognition.
- Incomplete plosion of final voiceless plosives. Voiceless plosive consonants very often lack the third “explosive” stage when in final position before a pause. Then, in the production of “please sto p ”, “I love i t ” or “come ba ck ”, there is no abrupt release of the organs for the /p, t, k/, and no explosion is heard. As with other previous phenomena, this may result in a problem for word recognition. In addition, in this phonetic context, these plosive consonants might even get substituted by a glottal stop.
- Voiceless/voiced contrasts in ‘-ed’ and ‘-s’. Despite the enormous effort it takes teachers to present Spanish speakers students the difference between voiceless /t/ from voiced /d/ in ‘-ed’ terminations, and between /s/ from /z/ in ‘-s’ terminations when in contact with voiceless (the first cases) and voiced (the second cases) sounds, students have tremendous problems in getting the ability to perceive and produce this difference. Really, their real nature as voiceless and voiced consonants depends on the phonetic context they occur (they will not be voiced if final before a pause or if in contact with a fortis consonant). A more sensible approach would be then not to spend so much effort in this distinction and pay more attention to the fortis/lenis one.
- Weakening of affricates into fricatives. Quite frequently affricates (/tS, dZ/) are reduced into
fricatives (/S, Z/) giving way to confusions of the type “watching” /»wÅtSIN/ - “washing” /»wÅSIN /.
- / h / dropping. Another problem for Spanish speakers which may cause confusion in word
recognition is related to the disappearance of the sound /h/ in connected speech. At the present time, it is rather frequent in casual speech to hear /»tel Œ˘/ (“tell her”) and /»teIk Im h´Um/ (“take him home”). A further stage of the same process, associated in this case with careless pronunciation, gives as a result pronunciations like /»k√mI´/ for “come here”.
- Nasal plosions. Any time a nasal (normally /n/) comes in to contact with /t/ or /d/ and becomes
syllabic , as in “cotton” /»kÅtn/ and “garden” /»gA˘dn/, there are two possible pronunciations: a) the plosive consonant shows an oral (the air escaping through the mouth) final “explosive” stage simultaneous with a nasal explosion (the air entering the nasal cavity for the production of the nasal); and b) the organs do not separate in the oral tract, it is the uvula which is released from the wall of the pharynx forcing the air to escape only through the nasal cavity. The first case does not cause problems to Spanish speakers in terms of production or perception. The second one (highly frequent in standard British English nowadays), on the contrary, is difficult to produce and introduces an element of confusion for word recognition.
- Velar nasals. English /N/ has no counterpart in Spanish at the phonemic level although Spanish
speakers do possess it as an allophone (“conquista”, “ingrato”), this causing some problems in phonemic contrasts (for example, in the pair “sin” /sIn/ - “sing” /sIN/). A second problem with this sound appears when being represented by ‘n’ before ‘g’ (especially in verbal-rooted words), as Spanish speakers tend to pronounce the letter ‘g’ in “singer” /»sIN´/ as */»sINg´/, “singing” /»sININ/ as */»sINgIN/, “hanging” /»hQNIN/ as */»hQNgIN/, etc. A third problem, although rather unimportant, is related to the use of /n/ in word-final position by native speakers in careless articulation, as in “coming” */»k√mIn/ or “reading” */»ri˘dIn/ (which may even be found written as “ comin’ “ and “ readin’ “).
- Dark ‘l’. English phoneme /l/ is approximately the same as Spanish /l/ when preceding a vowel
(“lost” /lÅst/, “illusion” /I»lu˘Zn/, “basketball and.. /»bA˘sk´tbç˘l ´n/ -this type of lateral is known as “clear ‘l’”). However, when before a consonant (“milk” /mIlk/), before a pause (“pull” /pUl/) and when syllabic (“saddle” /»sQdl/) the lateral changes to what is known as “dark (or “velarised”) ‘l’”. This allophone is pronounced by hollowing the front of the tongue without separating the tip from the alveolar ridge, thus creating a wider resonating cavity in the velar area. The tendency for Spanish speakers is to produce “clear ‘l’” sounds in all circumstances, something which, fortunately, does not create problems for intelligibility.
