Chapter 3 Consonants

1. Chapter 3 Consonants PHONOLOGY (Lane 335)

2. Obstruent vs sonorant • Obstruents: • airflow is restricted with articulators either in complete closure or close approximation • includes (stops, fricatives, & affricates) • May be voiced or voiceless • Sonorants: • there is no such restriction in the oral tract, or the nasal tract is open (air has free passage through the vocal tract) • includes (nasals, liquids, & glides) • Only voiced

3. Stops • A complete closure at the place of articulation • Pulmonic egressive oral stops a.k.a (plosives) • Two types: oral and nasal • Oral stops • Velum is raised • Articulators are close enough (in different points) to build pressure in the oral cavity. • Airstream is released with a burst of sound

4. Stops • English has 3 pairs of voiceless/voiced stops: • bilabial [p, b] • alveolar [t, d] • velar [k, g] • Glottal stop [ʔ] (- voice) • There are palatal stops (Malayalam), uvular (Quechua)

5. Stops • Ejectives: stops produced with glottalic egressive mechanism (the glottis closed then raised, the air above it pushed upwards, compressed & then released) • Implosives: involves glottalic airstream, but glottis is lowered • 10% of the world languages have implosives • Click: involves velaric ingressive (dual closure in the oral tract)

6. Production of stops • Pulmonic egressive oral stops involve 3 stages: • Closing stage: when active articulator comes in contact with the passive one • Closure stage: when articulators remain in contact & air builds up behind the blockage • Release Stage: when active articulator is lowered allowing air to be released with some force (the closing stage and/or release stage may be missing)

7. The release stage • Nasal release: occurs when an oral stop precedes a nasal stop; e.g. ‘mutton’ • Lateral release: occurs when an oral stop [t, d] precedes the lateral liquid [l]; tongue tip remains in contact with the alveolar ridge for the [l] & air is releases when sides of the tongue lower; e.g. ‘beetle’, ‘badly’

8. Aspiration • In ‘pie’, there is a puff of air following the [p] release (aspiration) • Indicated as [ph] • For aspirated stops: vocal cord remain open after the release of the plosive; 1st part of the vowel in ‘pie’ is produced without vibrating vocal cords • In English, aspiration occurs in –v stops at the beginning of stressed syllables • Words don’t contrast for aspiration in English

9. Voicing • Voiceless stops remain voiceless • Voicing is not always constant for voiced stops • Fully voiced between voiced sounds • Duration of the preceding segment decides whether the final stop is voiced or voiceless • when +v stops follows liquids, nasals, vowels, cause the sound to lengthen, e.g (back, bag)

10. Glottalisation and the glottal stop • Voiceless stops in final position can be glottalised • In some kinds of English, intervocalic voiceless stops are glottalised, e.g. ‘super’ [ʔp] • Voiceless stops may be replaced by a glottal stop (before a nasal ‘a[ʔn]ight’, a homorganic obstruent ‘grea[ʔs]mile’. • Word final [t] may be [ʔ] as in ‘ra[ʔ]’ (‘rat’) • Word-initial vowels can be glottals as in ‘it’s [ʔ ]over!’

11. Variation in stops • Assimilation: when a sound becomes similar to a neighboring sound; e.g, [t] & [d] assimilate to their context ‘ho[p p]otato’ instead of ‘hot potato’ & ‘ba[b b]oy’ instead of ‘bad boy’ • Bilabials [p] & [b] remain bilabials • Velars can be fronted; e.g. ‘kick’ & ‘cook’

12. Variation in stops • Assimilation that involve manner: • Flapping: the distinction between [t] & [d] is neutralized between vowels ‘latter’ & across word boundary ‘get away’ • They are replaced by a voiced alveolar flap transcribed as [ɾ] • For many Americans, ‘Adam’ & ‘atom’ may be homophones • When the stop begins a stressed syllable, it’s not flapped, as in ‘attend’ • In some English, ’t’ becomes ‘r’ when occurring after a short vowel & the next sound is a vowel; ‘lo [r] of fun’

13. Affricates • An affricate is a stop with an extended and controlled fricative phase following the obstruction • a combination of stop + fricative): ʧ = voiceless post-alveolar affricate; ‘chin’ ʤ = voiced post-alveolar affricate; ‘jaguar’

14. Fricatives • As the air exits, it’s forced through a narrow passage between the articulators resulting in friction • Think of friction • Airstream partially obstructed • Other languages have velar, bilabial, uvular & pharyngeal fricatives

15. Distribution • [f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ] occur in all positions • [ð] word-initial is restricted to a small set of function words (the, that…) • [ʒ] occurs in a few words, e.g, (treasure) & never word initially • [h] occurs only word initially or word-medially.

16. Voicing • Fricatives may be voiceless or voiced. • + voice fricatives may undergo devoicing word-initially & word-finally • Voiced fricatives lengthen the duration of any sonorant they follow ‘face’ & ‘phase’

17. Variation in fricatives • [f] & [v] don’t show assimilation • [v] becomes voiceless word-finally preceding a voiceless obstruent as in ‘ha[f] to’ • In faster speech, a sound may be lost in unstressed function words (elision), e.g ‘piece of cake’ • [θ, ð] might be deleted when precede [s, z] as in ‘clothes’ & ‘months’

18. Variation in fricatives • In some English, [θ, ð] may be replaced by [f, v]; ‘three’ & ‘free’ sound identical • in some other varieties, word initial [θ, ð] may be replaced by [s]; e.g. ([s]ousand) • Word initial [ð] assimilates entirely to a preceding alveolar sound as in; ‘I [z z] ere any food?’

19. Variation in fricatives • [s, z] often assimilate to a following palatal glide [j], or palato-alveolar fricative [ʃ] as in; (‘mi [ʃ j]ou’) & ‘it wa [ʒ j] ellow’ • [h] is dropped by all speakers in unstressed pronouns & auxiliaries such as ‘her’, ‘him’ • In words like ‘human’ & ‘huge’, there may be no [h]

20. Nasals • Velum is lowered allowing air into the nasal cavity • Only voiced (sonorants) • In English: • Bilabial [m] • Alveolar [n] • Velar [ŋ]

21. Distribution & Variation • [m] & [n] occur in all positions • [ŋ] cannot occur word initially in English • There is alternation between [ŋ] & [n] for the inflection ‘-ing’ which may be [ɪn] or [ɪŋ] • [m] may be labio-dental before labio-dental fricatives [f] & [v] as in ‘some fun’ • [n] assimilates to the following segment as in ‘i[m p]aris’

22. Liquids • refers to ‘l’ & ‘r’ (laterals or rhotics) • produced with free airflow, but with some obstruction in the oral tract • Liquids are sonorants (+ voice)

23. Laterals • There is contact between the active articulator (central of the tongue) & the passive articulator (roof of the mouth) • English has ‘l’ in ‘lion’

24. Distribution & Variation • [l] occur in all positions • After voiceless obstruent, [l] is devoiced as in ‘play’ • [l] is velarised in final position, before a consonant & syllabically (dark ‘l’) as in ‘ fill’ & ‘film’& ‘bottle’ • Non-velarised version is known as (clear ‘l’) & occurs word initially

25. Rhotics • Rhotics include: • The alveolar trill [r] • The alveolar tap [ɾ] • The alveolar continuant [ɹ] • The retroflex [ɻ] • The uvular roll [R] or fricative [ʁ] • They are grouped together in terms of phonology, not phonetics

26. Distribution • Non-rhotic accents: rhotic was lost post-vocalically (i.e. word finally or before a consonant) • Rhotic accents: have rhotics in all words • ‘linking ‘r’’: [r] is pronounced before a vowel, across word boundaries, & within words (‘far away’, ‘soar’ vs. ‘soaring’ • ‘intrusive ‘r’’: the occurrence in non-rhotic accents of a word- final rhotic which is absent in spelling as in ‘tuna [r] alert’

27. Variation • Rhotics are devoiced following voiceless stops as in ‘pray’ • Following [t] & [d], the rhotic will be fricativised as in ‘tree’ & ‘dream’ • The continuant rhotic may become a tap between vowels as in ‘very’& after [θ] & [ð] as in ‘three’ • There may be a degree of lip rounding with the rhotic

28. Glides • They are more like vowels in articulation (semi-vowels) • They don’t from syllabic nuclei like consonants (appear at the edge of a syllable) • English has 2 glides: • Palatal [j] as in ‘yes’ • Labial-velar [w] as in ‘weigh’

29. Distribution • English [j] appears in word-initial position • In word-initial clusters, [j] is restricted to appear before the vowels [uː] & [ʊə]; e.g. (mute, pure) • The labial-velar [w] appears word initially • English doesn’t allow [w] after consonants other than [t], [d], [k], [s], [θ] • May follow [g] in some loanwords like ‘Gwynneth’

30. Variation • [j] varies according to the following vowel; higher before high vowels (‘[j]east’) & lower before low vowels as in (‘[j]ak’) • [w] & [j] are devoiced after –voice obstruents; e.g (twilight)