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Class Notes-6 English Consonant Sound Description

The document describes the characteristics of plosive consonant sounds in English. Plosives are consonants where one articulator is blocked against another, air is compressed, and then released, potentially making a burst of noise called a plosion. English has six plosive phonemes - /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/ - which differ in voicing and place of articulation (bilabial, alveolar, velar). The document also provides an exercise to describe the consonant sounds of English using a three-part system of voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation.

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Md. Rezaul Karim 1821421015
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289 views

Class Notes-6 English Consonant Sound Description

The document describes the characteristics of plosive consonant sounds in English. Plosives are consonants where one articulator is blocked against another, air is compressed, and then released, potentially making a burst of noise called a plosion. English has six plosive phonemes - /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/ - which differ in voicing and place of articulation (bilabial, alveolar, velar). The document also provides an exercise to describe the consonant sounds of English using a three-part system of voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation.

Uploaded by

Md. Rezaul Karim 1821421015
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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ENG 302

Plosives (Stops)
A plosive is a consonant articulation with the following characteristics:
a) One articulator is moved against another, or two articulators are moved against each other,
so as to form a stricture (blockage) that allows no air to escape from the vocal tract. The
stricture is, then, total.
b) After this stricture has been formed and air has been compressed behind it, it is released -
that is, air is allowed to escape.
c) If the air behind the stricture is still under pressure when the plosive is released, it is
probable that the escape of air will produce noise loud enough to be heard. This noise is called
plosion.
d) There may be voicing during part or all of the plosive articulation.
To give a complete description of a plosive consonant we must describe what happens at each
of the following four phases in its production:
i) The first phase is when the articulator or articulators move to form the stricture for
the plosive. We call this the closing phase.
ii) ii) The second phase is when the compressed air is stopped from escaping. We call
this the compression phase.
iii) iii) The third phase is when the articulators used to form the stricture are moved so
as to allow air to escape. This is the release phase. iv) The fourth phase is what
happens immediately after
iv) (iii), so we will call it the post-release phase. 4 .4 English plosives

English has six plosive consonants: p, t, k, b, d, g. The glottal plosive [ʔ] occurs frequently but it
is of less importance, since it is usually just an alternative pronunciation of p, t, k in certain
contexts. The plosives have different places of articulation. The plosives p, b are bilabial since
the lips are pressed together (Fig. 15); t, d are alveolar since the tongue blade is pressed against
the alveolar ridge (Fig. 16). Normally the tongue does not touch the front teeth as it does in the
dental plosives found in many languages. The plosives k, g are velar; the back of the tongue is
pressed against the area where the hard palate ends and the soft palate begins (Fig. 17).
The plosives p, t, k are always voiceless; b, d, g are sometimes fully voiced, sometimes partly
voiced and sometimes voiceless.

1
All six plosives can occur at the beginning of a word (initial position, onset), between other
sounds (medial position) and at the end of a word (final position, coda). To begin with we will
look at plosives preceding vowels (which can be abbreviated as CV, where C stands for a
consonant and V stands for a vowel), between vowels (VCV) and following vowels (VC). We will
look at more complex environments in later chapters.

Exercise

Three term description of the English Consonant Sounds (phonemes)


(RP/SBE)
Voicing-place of articulation-manner of articulation
Oral-nasal

1. /p/ - pen, tip - voiceless bilabial stop


2. /b/ - bend, bib -
3. /t/ - ten, wit -
4. /d/ - den, did -
5. /k/ - cot, kick -
6. /g/ -got, big -
7. /θ/ -thing, breath -
8. /ð/ -then, breathe -
9. /f/ - fan, roof -
10. /v/ - van, groove -
11. /s/ -sit, books -
12. /z/ -zip, boys -
13. /ʃ/ - ship, bush -
14. /ӡ/ - measure, pleasure -
15. /h/ - hat, hop -
16. /ʧ/ - chalk, church -
2
17. /ʤ/ - jug, bridge -
18. /w/ -win, way -
19. /j/ - yes, yet -
20. /ɹ/ -rent, rain -
21. /l/ - let, real -
22. /m/ -me, rhyme -
23. /n/ - knee, mine -
24. /ŋ/ - sing, thing -
/Ɂ/ - better, water, out - voiceless glottal stop (common sound in Cockney variety
of English)

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