1. English Phonetics and Phonology
Lecture A5
English Phonetics and Phonology

2. What’s in A5?
Textbook sections A5 and A6 are technical explorations of phonetics…
…but for our purposes we will discuss (and be tested on) only the ‘Highlights’.
The other content is useful (and interesting!) but the highlight slides will have BLUE titles.

3. A5: Consonant Possibilities
How can we pronounce consonants?
Consonants are usually referred to by brief descriptive labels stating 1) energy, 2) place of articulation and 3) manner of articulation
However, we shall discuss energy of articulation last, since it’s the most complex.

4. Place of articulation What does that mean? Where the sound is made…
Different languages use different places of articulation…
…and languages other than English might have more!
Example: French “r”

5. Places of articulation
Usually there are one (sometimes two) places of articulation for a single consonant.
One: ‘th’ unvoiced
Two: ‘w’ (lips and velum used at the same time)

6. Try this:

7. Pg. 46 (full list of consonant labels)

8. Manner of Articulation
Place of articulation = where
Manner of articulation = how
“How” in articulation involves stricture
Narrowing vocal tract to affect air
Three types:
1) Complete closure (block all air)
2) Close approximation (block some air… throat becomes narrow)
3) Open approximation (air moves freely, but vocal tract shape changes
This creates resonance

9. Resonance

10. Active & Passive Articulators?
With manner of articulation…
Active = organ that moves
Passive = target (where the sound need to go to)

11. Practice:

12. Complete Closure Easy way to talk about this… “stop”
In other words… complete closure = air stops
Two types of stops:
Plosives (p, t, k, b, d, g)
Affricates (ch…as in church and dg… as in judge)

13. Nasals, Trills and taps These sounds are normally voiced in English.
Made using the ________.
Trills… not common in Standard English
Used in Spanish ‘rr’
Taps… one beat of a trill

14. Sound Scottish
Some varieties of Scottish (and Northern) English include a tap for the letter ‘r’.

15. Fricatives (close approximation)

16. Obstruent Obstruent = stops & fricatives Fricatives (f/v/th/s/z)
Stops (plosives…p/b/t/d/k/g), (affricates… ch/j)
How to remember this? The term ‘obstruent’ comes from the vocabulary ‘obstruction’.
Obstruction means to stop or get in the way
Stops “stop”
Fricatives “get in the way”

17. Sonorant All other consonant sounds (and vowels) are sonorant.
Sonorant comes from the word sonorous (to make sound)

18. Central approximants

19. Try this:

20. The r sound

21. Lateral (approximant)

22. Try this:

23. Voicing

24. Try this:

25. Secondary articulation

26. Know this!

27. Labialisation

28. Palatalisation

29. Velarisation

30. Glottalisation & Nasalisation

31. End of A5