Consonants and allophonic

variation
Some useful definitions
Phonetics and phonology
Phonetics and phonology are the two fields dedicated to the study of human speech
sounds and sound structures. The difference between phonetics and phonology is that
phonetics deals with the physical production of these sounds while phonology is the study
of sound patterns and their meanings both within and across languages.
Phoneme
Any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one
word from another, for example p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat.
allophone The realisation of a phoneme. Each segment has different
realisations which are only partly distinguishable for speakers. A phoneme
can have different allophones, frequently depending on position in the
word or on a preceding vowel, e.g. [l] and [ɫ] in English (at the beginning
and end of a word respectively)
Phonemic and phonetic transcription
Phonetic transcription containing a lot of information about the exact
quality of the sounds would be called a narrow phonetic transcription,
while one which only included a little more information than a phonemic
transcription would be called a broad phonetic transcription. One further
type of transcription is one which is basically phonemic, but contains
additional symbolic information about allophones of particular symbols:
this is often called an allophonic transcription.
Consonants
One of the two main classes of sound. Consonants are formed by a constriction in the supra- glottal tract (or
occasionally at the vocal folds as with the glottal stop [ʔ]). They divide into the chief types stops —/p,t,k/ for instance,
fricatives — /f, θ, s/ — and approximants — /j, w/. Consonants contrast with vowels in their relatively low sonority and
are hence found typically in the margins of syllables, i.e. in onsets and codas as in stopped /stɒpt/.

Consonant sounds are distinguished in terms of place of articulation, manner of articulation and voicing. It seems
difficult but don’t worry, it’s very simple.

The articulation of consonants implies some kind of obstruction of the air passage. The place of articulation is the
meeting point between an active and a passive articulator (the articulators which make the obstruction). The active
articulator usually moves in order to make the constriction and the passive articulator just sits there and gets
approached. In this image we can see the articulators:
Passive and active articulators
ACTIVE ARTICULATORS
An active articulator is the articulator that does all or most of the moving during a speech gesture. The
active articulator is usually the lower lip or some part of the tongue. These active articulators are
attached to the jaw which is relatively free to move when compared to parts of the vocal tract
connected directly to the greater mass of the skull.

PASSIVE ARTICULATORS
A passive articulator is the articulator that makes little or no movement during a speech gesture. The
active articulator moves towards the relatively immobile passive articulator. Passive articulators are
often directly connected to the skull. Passive articulators include the upper lip, the upper teeth, the
various parts of the upper surface of the oral cavity, and the back wall of the pharynx.
Place of articulation
1. Bilabial: it's done by bringing both lips together .
2. Labiodental: it's is done with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
3. Dental: it's done with the tongue and the upper teeth.
4. Alveolar: it's done with the tongue and the alveolar ridge.
5. Post-alveolar: it's done with the blade of the tongue and the back of the
alveolar ridge.
6. Palatal: it's done with the front of the tongue and the hard palate.
7. Velar: it's done with the back of the tongue and the soft palate.
8. Glottal: it's done with the vocal folds open.
Manner of articulation
The manner of articulation means how the sound is made using the different places of articulation, tongue
placement, whether the sound is voiced or unvoiced and the amount of air needed.

Plosives - air coming from the lungs is stopped at some point during the formation of the sound. Some of these
sounds are unvoiced, such as pin, tin, and kin; some of these are voiced, such as bust, dust and gust.
Fricatives - restricted air flow causes friction but the air flow isn’t completely stopped. Unvoiced examples include
fin, thin, sin, shin, and hit; voiced examples include van, zoo, the, and treasure.
Affricates - are combinations of stops and fricatives. Cheap is an example of an unvoiced affricate and jeep is an
example of an voiced.
Nasals - as expected, the air is stopped from going through the mouth and is redirected into the nose. Voiced
examples include seem, seen, scene, and sing.
Liquids - almost no air is stopped; voiced examples included late and rate.
Aproximants - sometimes referred to as “semi-vowels,” the air passes through the articulators to create vowel like
sounds but the letters are known as consonants. Examples include well and yell.
voicing
Voicing allows us to distinguish between voiced and voiceless sounds. This
is easy to test by putting your finger on your throat. If you feel a vibration
the sound is voiced. If you don't feel the vibration (just a short explosion of
air as you pronounce) the sound is voiceless.
Fortis and lenis
The fortis/lenis distinction is a very complicated matter. It is necessary to consider how one
could measure “force of articulation”; many different laboratory techniques have been tried to
see if the articulators are moved more energetically for fortis consonants, but all have proved
inconclusive. The only difference that seems reasonably reliable is that fortis consonants
have higher air pressure in the vocal tract, but Lisker (1970) has argued convincingly that
this is not conclusive evidence for a “force of articulation” difference. It is possible to ask
phonetically untrained speakers whether they feel that more energy is used in pronouncing
p, t, k than in b, d, g, but there are many difficulties in doing this. A useful review of the “force
of articulation” question is in Catford (1977: 199-208). I feel the best conclusion is that any
term one uses to deal with this distinction (whether fortis/lenis or voiceless/voiced) is to be
looked on as a cover term -
Fortis clipping
Final position (VC): Final b, d, g normally have little voicing; if there is voic ing, it
is at the beginning of the compression phase; p, t, k are always voiceless. The
plosion following the release of p, t, k and b, d, g is very weak and often not
audible. The difference between p, t, k and b, d, g is primarily the fact that vowels
preceding p, t, k are much shorter. The shortening effect of p, t, k is most
noticeable when the vowel is one of the long vowels or diphthongs. This effect is
sometimes known as pre-fortis clipping.
Eg. mate vs. made
https://www.britishaccentmethod.com/pre-fortis-clipping-in-british-english-vo
wels-made-easy/
Glottalization
Fortis consonants are usually articulated with open glottis - that is, with the vocal folds
separated. This is always the case with fricatives, where airflow is essential for
successful production. However, with plosives an alternative possibility is to produce
the consonant with completely closed glottis. This type of plosive articulation, known as
glottalisation, is found widely in contemporary English pronunciation, though only in
specific contexts. The glottal closure occurs immediately before p, t, k, tj. The most
widespread glottalisation is that of tj at the end of a stressed syllable (I leave defining
what “stressed syllable” means until Chapter 8). If we use the symbol? to represent a
glottal closure, the phonetic transcription for various words containing tj can be given as
follows:
Aspiration of /p,t,k/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7szkN4QcxI
Allophonic variation /t/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1yAZ-Pr5BM

Stop

Tap

What?

butter
Dentalization of plosives
We have seen (see Plosives) how the plosive sound /t/ is articulated with the tongue tip
contacting the alveolar ridge, i.e. it is an alveolar plosive. Whilst this is the predominant place
of articulation, consider the placement of the tongue tip in the word eighth /eɪtθ/. In this
instance, the tongue is not raised to the alveolar ridge but is brought into contact with the
back of the upper incisors. In other words, it is dentalized, being produced in the same
place as the dental fricative /θ/ it precedes, i.e.

eighth /eɪtθ/ → [eɪt̪ θ]

Some Differences with Spanish
1. Spanish consonants are often articulated with less muscular tension than their
spanish counterpart.
2. Spanish consonants are generally shorter than English ones.
3. Spanish lenis consonants are generally devoiced in the same circumstances
as the English ones. But their scarce occurrence in final position makes
devoicing before pauses only possible in
4. Spanish plosives do not occur together very frequently; therefore non-audible,
nasal, and lateral types of release are of exceptional occurrence, the first two
never appearing in the same syllable, and none of them in final position.
Most common spelling realizations
Past tense regular verbs
Plurals, genitive and third person singular
Silent letters
Silent letters (Cont)
Alternative spellings
Spelling: Consonants alternations
Semi vowels