ENGLISH CONSONANTS

General features

General characteristics to be considered in the production of all English consonants:

1. Source of air stream (pulmonic) 2. Air stream forced outwards (egressive) or

sucked inwards (ingressive as a variant of its egressive equivalent extralinguistically when expressing surprise or pain) 3. Voicing 4. State of air passage (manner of articulation)

5. Place of articulation 6. Degree of breath and muscular effort involved in articulation (fortis/lenis) 7. Noise component (obstruents: plosives, fricatives, affricates; sonorants: nasals, vowels, approximants /w/, /j/, /r/, /l/) 8. Position of the soft palate (lowered/raised)

Other consonants
/ /voiceless post-alveolar affricate Affricates (a combination of stop + fricative):

/ / voiced post-alveolar affricate

Approximant (articulators approach each other but do not touch): / w/ /r/ /j/ Lateral (also called lateral approximant; air flows over sides of tongue): /l/

Summary of manners of articulation

Plosive / Stop p b t d k g Fricative f v s z h Affricate (stop + fricative) Nasal m n Approximants w r j

Examples of Classifying Consonants

/r/ as in sing is a: pulmonic, egressive, alveolar, voiceless, fortis, oral, fricative, obstruent consonant .M. as in gong is a :
-

pulmonic, egressive, velar, voiced, lenis, nasal, sonorant consonant

BIBLIOGRAPHY
CRUTTENDEN, ALAN. Gimsons Pronunciation of English. 5th Ed. London: Arnold, 1994. FINCH, D. & Hctor ORTIZ LIRA, A Course in English Phonetics for Spanish Speakers, London: Heinemann, 1982. GIEGERICH, Heinz, English Phonology, Cambridge, 1995. ROACH, Peter, English Phonetics and Phonology, Cambridge: CUP, 1991.