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Unit 6: Consonants and Its Phonetic Transcription

phonemes; this is a typically consonantal distribution. We can show that a word beginning with w or Notes
j is treated as beginning with a consonant in the following way: the indefinite article is ‘a’ before a
consonant (as in ‘a cat’, ‘a dog’), and ‘an’ before a vowel (as in ‘an apple’, ‘an orange’). If a word
beginning with w or j is preceded by the indefinite article, it is the ‘a’ form that is found (as in ‘a way’,
‘a year’). Another example is that of the definite article. Here the rule is that ‘the’ is pronounced as
ð before consonants (as in ‘the dog’ ð dZl, ‘the cat’ ð kæt) and as ð i before vowels (as in ‘the
e
e
e
apple’ ð i æpl, ‘the orange’ ð i Zrwnd ¥ .This evidence illustrates why it is said that j, w are
phonologically consonants. However, it is important to remember that to pronounce them as fricatives
(as many foreign learners do), or as affricates, is a mispronunciation. Only in special contexts do we
hear friction noise in j or w; this is when they are preceded by p, t, k at the beginning of a syllable, as
in these words:
‘pure’ pj• e (no English words begin with pw)
‘tune’ t ju+n ‘twin’ twwn
‘queue’ kju+ ‘quit’ kwwt
When p, t, k come at the beginning of a syllable and are followed by a vowel, they are aspirated, as
was explained in Chapter 4. This means that the beginning of a vowel is voiceless in this context.
However, when p, t, k are followed not by a vowel but by one of l, r, j, w, these voiced continuant
consonants undergo a similar process, as has been mentioned earlier in this chapter: they lose their
voicing and become fricative. So words like ‘play’ plew, ‘tray’ trew, ‘quick’ kwwk, ‘cue’ kju+ contain
devoiced and fricative l, r, w, j whereas ‘lay’, ‘ray’, ‘wick’, ‘you’ contain voiced l, r, w, j. Consequently,
if for example ‘tray’ were to be pronounced without devoicing of the r (i.e. with fully voiced r) English
speakers would be likely to hear the word ‘dray’.
This completes our examination of the consonant phonemes of English. It is useful to place them on
a consonant chart, and this is done in Table 6.1. On this chart, the different places of articulation are
arranged from left to right and the manners of articulation are arranged from top to bottom. When
there is a pair of phonemes with the same place and manner of articulation but differing in whether
they are fortis or lenis (voiceless or voiced), the symbol for the fortis consonant is placed to the left of
the symbol for the lenis consonant.
Self-Assessment

1. When the vocal tract is in its resting position for normal breathing, the soft palate is usually
lowered. Describe what movements are carried out by the soft palate in the pronunciation of the
following words:
(i) banner (ii) mid (iii) angle
6.5 Summary

• The notes for this chapter are devoted to giving further detail on a particularly difficult theoretical
problem. The argument that ŋ is an allophone of n, not a phoneme in its own right, is so widely
accepted by contemporary phonological theorists that few seem to feel it worthwhile to explain
it fully. Since the velar nasal is introduced in this chapter, I have chosen to attempt this here.
However, it is a rather complex theoretical matter, and you may prefer to leave consideration of
it until after the discussion of problems of phonemic analysis in Chapter 13.
• There are brief discussions of the phonemic status of ŋ in Chomsky and Halle (1968: 85) and
Ladefoged (2006); for a fuller treatment, see Wells (1982: 60-4) and Giegerich (1992: 297-301).
Everyone agrees that English has at least two contrasting nasal phonemes, m and n. However,
there is disagreement about whether there is a third nasal phoneme ŋ. In favour of accepting ŋ
as a phoneme is the fact that traditional phoneme theory more or less demands its acceptance
despite the usual preference for making phoneme inventories as small as possible. Consider
minimal pairs (pairs of words in which a difference in

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