Sounds: Articulation & Voicing

English Consonants=24 Consonants


Stops=Plosives=Explosives

Sound	Place of Articulation	Manner of Articulation	voicing
/b/ e.g. boy	Bilabial	Stop/plosive	Voiced
/p/ e.g. pen	Bilabial	Stop/plosive	Voiceless
/d/ e.g. dog	Alveolar	Stop/plosive	Voiced
/t/ e.g. team	Alveolar	Stop/plosive	Voiceless
/g/ e.g. game	Velar	Stop/plosive	Voiced
/k/ e.g. key	Velar	Stop/plosive	Voiceless

Fricatives

Sound	Place of Articulation	Manner of Articulation	voicing
/f/ e.g. film	Labio-dental	Fricative	Voiceless
/v/ e.g. video	Labio-dental	Fricative	Voiced
/θ/ e.g. thin	Dental	Fricative	Voiceless
/ð/ e.g. this	Dental	Fricative	Voiced
/ʃ/ e.g. shark	Palato-alveolar	Fricative	Voiceless
/ʒ / e.g.rouge	Palato-alveolar	Fricative	Voiced
/s / e.g. seem	Alveolar	Fricative	Voiceless
/z/ e.g. zoo	Alveolar	Fricative	Voiced
/h/ e.g. hat	Glottal	Fricative	Voiceless

Lateral

Sound	Place of Articulation	Manner of Articulation	voicing
/l/ e.g. loud	Alveolar	Lateral	Voiced

Nasals

Sound	Place of Articulation	Manner of Articulation	voicing
/m/ e.g. mouth	Bilabial	Nasal	Voiced
/n/ e.g. new	Alveolar	Nasal	Voiced
/ŋ/ e.g. king	Velar	Nasal	Voiced

Affricates

Sound	Place of Articulation	Manner of Articulation	voicing
/ ʧ / e.g. chair	Palato-Alveolar	Affricate	Voiceless
/ ʤ / e.g. judge	Palato-Alveolar	Affricate	Voiced

Glides

Sound	Place of Articulation	Manner of Articulation	voicing
/r/ e.g. right	Alveolar	Glide /Frictionless continuant	Voiced
/j/ e.g. yard	Palatal	Glide/ Semi-vowel	Voiced
/w/ e.g. wing	Bilabial / Velar	Glide/ Semi-vowel	Voiced

English Vowels


Simple Vowels (monphthongs)= 12
vowels


Front vowels

Sound	Example
/iː/	Seem, seek, leek, feel
/e/	Ten, pen, hen
/ɪ/	Sit, hit, fit, kill
/æ/	Hat, cat, map, rat

Central Vowels

Sound	Example
/ə/	About, teacher, writer
/ʌ/	Luck, duck, suck
/3ː/	Bird, third , heard, learn

Back Vowels

Sound	Example
/uː/	Tool, moon, cool
/ʊ/	Put, could, should, wood
/ɔː/	Horse, course, horn
/ɑː/	Farm, hard, car, harm
/ɒ/	Top, not hot

English Diphthongs=8 Diphthongs


Front Diphthongs

Sound	Example
/eɪ/	Day, make, hay
/aɪ /	High, light, might
/ɔɪ /	Boy, coin, soil

Central Diphthongs

Sound	Example
/eə /	Fair, hair, there
/ɪə/	Clear, hear, tear
/ ʊə /	Sure, poor

Back
Diphthongs

Sound	Example
/aʊ /	Cow, how, now, loud
/əʊ/	Know, tone, so

Place of Articulation:



1- 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.

2-
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.

3- Dental

(Tongue
tip/blade and upper front teeth.) Say the words 'thigh,
thy'. Both these kinds of sounds are normal in English,
and both may be called dental.

4- Alveolar


(Tongue tip/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.
A good way to appreciate the difference between dental
and alveolar sounds is to say 'ten' and 'tenth' (or 'n'
and 'nth'). Which n is farther back? (Most people make
the one in the first of each of these pairs of words on
the alveolar ridge and the second as a dental sound with
the tongue touching the upper front teeth.)

5- Retroflex


(Tongue tip 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 sounds with the tip of the tongue raised
in 'ire, hour, air'.


6- Palato-Alveolar
(or alveo-palatal)


(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.
Because these sounds are made further back in the mouth
than those in 'sigh, sea, sew', they can also be called
post-alveolar. You should be able to pronounce them with
the tip/blade of the tongue.

7. Palatal


(Front of the tongue and hard
palate.) Say the word 'you' 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 toward the hard palate
(but there is no contact between the articulators). Try
to hold the consonant position and breathe inward
through the mouth. You will probably feel the rush of
cold air between the front of the tongue and the hard
palate.

8. Velar


(Back of the tongue and soft palate.)
The consonants that have the farthest 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. It
should also be mentioned that certain sounds, such as
/w/, may be classified both as bilabial and velar.

9. Glottal




This place of articulation refers to
the vocal cords and, more specifically, to the glottis
(the space between the vocal cords). This kind of
articulation is made when the vocal cords allow a small
space for the air stream to pass between them.


Manner of Articulation:

1. Stop
(Plosive)



(Complete
or full closure of the articulators involved so that the
air stream cannot escape through the mouth before it is
suddenly released causing a small burst). There are two
possible types of stop.

2. Fricative



(Close approximation of two
articulators so that the air stream 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'
(alveo-palatal) are examples of fricative sounds.

3.
Approximant



(An
articulation in which one articulator is close to
another, but without the vocal tract being narrowed to
such an extent that a turbulent air stream is produced.)
In saying the first 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. Approximants are sometimes called
glides or semi-vowels.



4.
Lateral
(Approximant)


(Obstruction of the air stream 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.) Say the word 'lie'
and note how the tongue touches near the center of the
alveolar ridge. Prolong the initial consonant and note
how, despite the closure formed by the tongue, air flows
out freely, over the side of the tongue.


5. Trill


It might be useful to know the terms
trill (also called roll) and tap (or flap). Tongue-tip
trills occur in some forms of Scottish English in words
like 'rye' and 'raw'. Trills are described as
intermittent sounds because of the repetitive nature of
its production where several contacts are made between
articulators. Taps, in which the tongue makes a single
tap against the alveolar ridge, occur in the middle of a
word such as 'pity' in many forms of American English.

6. Affricate


The production of some sounds
involves more than one of these manners of articulation.
Say the word 'cheap' (which is quite different from
'sheep') and think about how you make the first sound.
At the beginning, the tongue comes up to make contact
with the back part of the alveolar ridge to form a stop
closure (note that the alveo-palatal area rather than
the beginning of the alveolar ridge is the one used).
This contact is the slackened that there is a fricative
at the same place of articulation. This kind of
combination of a stop and a fricative is called an
affricate; in this case an alveo-palatal affricate.