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 ʤ = voiced post-alveolar affricate; ‘jaguar’
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)