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Linguistics

Notes 5.1.8 The Manner of Articulation
According to the manner of articulation, which describes the type of obstruction caused by the
narrowing or closure of the articulators, the consonants can be divided into stops, affricates, fricatives,
nasals, rolls, laterals, and semi-vowels or frictionless continuants. We shall discuss these one by one.
1. Stop: In the production of a stop, the oral and nasal passages are closed simultaneouly. The
active and passive articulators come in contact with each other forming a stricture of complete
closure and preventing the air from escaping through the mouth. The soft palate is raised and
thus the nasal passage is also blocked. (This is also known as velic closure). The air behind the
oral closure is compressed, and when the active articulator is removed from contact with
passive one, the air escapes with an explosion. Stops are also known as mutes, explosives,
plosives or occlusives, /p/ in pat and /b/ in bat are the examples of stops.
2. Affricate: If the stop is not held for any appreciable time and released slowly, we get an
affricate rather than a plosive, e.g./t ∫ / in chair and /dz/ in jail.
3. Nasal: In a nasal contoid, the breath stream is interrupted at some point in the oral cavity or
at the lips, while being allowed to enter the nose and create resonance there. Thus a nasal is
produced by a stricture of complete oral closure. The soft palate is lowered and the air passes
through the nose. All nasal sounds are voiced. Examples /m, n, v/ in English.
4. Trill (or Rolled Consonants): In the production of a trill, the active articulator taps several
times against the passive articulator. The stricture involved can be called a stricture of
intermittent closure. Scottish /r/, for example in red, in which the tip of the tongue strikes
against the teeth ridge a number of times, is called a trilled consonant. In Hindi words like
Ram/ ra: m/ and rath /r θ / we have this variety of /r/.
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5. Flap: For a flap the active articulator strikes the passive articulation once only. For example the
/r/ in the English word very, in which the tip of the tongue strikes against teeth ridge only once.
6. Lateral: Laterals are produced by a stricture of complete closure in the centre of the vocal
tract, but the air passes out every one or both side of the tongue. For example, /1/ in late.
7. Fricative: In the production of a fricative consonant the stricture is one of close approximation.
The active articulator and the passive articulator are so close to each other that passage
between them is very narrow and the air passes through it with audible friction. Examples are
/f/ in face, /v/ in vain / θ /in think, / ð / in them, /s/ in sail, /z/ in zero, / ∫ / in ship,
/ ¥ / in measure, /h/ in hat.
8. Frictionless Continuant: In the production of a frictionless continuant the stricture is that of
open approximation. For example in the production of /r/ in red, read, real, ready, the active
articulator (tip of the tongue) is brought just behind the passive articulator (alveolar ridge) so
that there is plenty of space between the two articulators, and the air passes between them
without friction; and hence the term “frictionless continuant.” Hindi “v” as in vah is a frictionless
continuant. Gimson includes the English /r/ in words like red and read among the frictionless
continuants, but the English (r) also occurs as a fricative as in try, cry, ray, pray, grow, very,
sorry. Jones includes it in the list of fricatives and Gimson in the list of frictionless continuants.
9. Semi-vowel: A semi-vowel is a vowel glide functioning as a consonant i.e., as the C element
in syllable structure. In terms of articulation semi-vowels are like vowels, but they don’t
behave like vowels. Semi-vowels are never stable; they can never be pronounced by themselves.
They are sounds in transition. Examples are /j/ in yet and /w/ in wet. These are also called
semiconsonants too.
10. Fortis and Lenis: When we have voiceless/voiced pair, the two sounds are also distinguished
by the degree of breath force and muscular effort involved in the articulations, e.g.s is
comparatively strong or fortis, and z is comparatively weaker lenis.
We summarize the classfication of the consonants in English on the basis of the manner of
articulation in the following table.

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