7 Classification and Description of Speech Sounds: English Consonants

Dr. Chhaya Jain

The concept that speech is primary and writing is secondary has changed the way of English Language Teaching. This chapter deals with speech sounds and classification of speech sounds in relation with consonants.

Being able to describe a consonant sound has many benefits.

• If you’re teaching English as a second language, knowing how consonants are pronounced will help you to show your students where and how to make the sounds themselves.
• If you’re a student learning English as a second language, you’ll be able to sound more like a native English speaker if you know how and where English consonants are made.
• If you’re a therapist, you’ll be able to help your patients to produce the sounds.

Speech Sounds: Meaning and Definition

Because sounds are present in all languages regardless of orthography, linguists needed a way to represent the same sounds in different languages, no matter in which language they occur. Sounds are described not by how they sound to the ear, but rather how they are produced in the vocal tract. Sounds are produced my moving the articulators (things that can be moved) within the vocal tract (lips, tongue, etc). Speech involves producing sounds from the voice box. In English, there are no one- to -one relations between the system of writing and the system of pronunciation. The alphabet, which we use to write English, has 26 letters but in English speech sounds are approximately 44.The number of speech sounds in English varies from dialect to dialect.

To represent the full spectrum of sounds without using different orthographic systems, a universal alphabet of sounds has been developed. Let’s not forget that Phonemes in oral languages are not physical sounds, but mental abstractions of speech sounds. A phoneme is a family of speech sounds (phones) that the speakers of a language think of as being, and usually hear as, the same sound. A perfect alphabet is the one that has one symbol for each phoneme. The IPA, or International Phonetic Alphabet uses a single symbol for each specific sound. Sometimes these symbols match the letters in English, which represent these sounds. Sometimes they do not.

English Phonemes

Infants begin making sounds at birth; those early sounds in the form of cries can be easily recognized. As the infant continues to mature, cooing and babbling noises develop into consonants and vowel sounds. These early pre-consonantsand pre vowel sounds gradually become shaped into words. But phoneme development in neonates for purpose of speech generally begins between the first and second birthdays.

Phoneme is the basic linguistic unit, denoted by a character enclosed with forward slashes or square braces (e.g. the symbol /i/ represents the vowel sound heard in the word team). Phonemes may be classified and described according to a number of criteria. They may be divided, for example, into vowels and consonants. In a language the number of phonemes is fixed. Meaning depends heavily on the inter- relationship of phonemes and morphemes. That’s why modern linguistics studies language as a system. It studies phonemes at the lowest level and sentences at the highest level through syllables, morphemes, words and phrases.

In PHONETICS, consonants are discussed in terms of three anatomical and physiological factors:

1. The state of the glottis (whether or not there is VOICE or vibration in the larynx),
2. The place of articulation (that part of the vocal apparatus with which the sound is most closely associated),
3. And the manner of articulation (how the sound is produced).

Articulators above the larynx

All the sounds we make when we speak are the result of muscles contracting. The muscles in the chest that we use for breathing produce the flow of air that is needed for almost all speech sounds; muscles in the larynx produce many different modifications in the flow of air from the chest to the mouth. After passing through the larynx, the air goes through what we call the vocal tract, which ends at the mouth and nostrils; we call the part comprising the mouth the oral cavity and the part that leads to the nostrils the nasal cavity. Here the air from the lungs escapes into the atmosphere. We have a large and complex set of muscles that can produce changes in the shape of the vocal tract, and in order to learn how the sounds of speech are produced it is necessary to become familiar with the different parts of the vocal tract. These different parts are called articulators, and the study of them is called articulatory phonetics.

The pharynx is a tube, which begins just above the larynx. It is about 7 cm long in women and about 8 cm in men, and at its top end it is divided into two, one part being the back of the oral cavity and the other being the beginning of the way through the nasal cavity. If you look in your mirror with your mouth open, you can see the back of the pharynx.

ii)The soft palate or velum is in a position that allows air
to pass through the nose and through the mouth. Often in speech it is raised so that air cannot escape through the nose. The other important thing about the soft palate is that it is one of the articulators that can be touched by the tongue. While making the sounds k, À the tongue is in contact with the lower side of the soft palate, and we call these velar consonants.

iii)The hard palate is often called the “roof of the mouth”. Its smooth curved surface can be felt with the tongue. A consonant made with the tongue close to the hard palate is called palatal. The sound j in ‘yes’ is palatal.

iv)The alveolar ridge is between the top front teeth and the hard palate. Its shape can be felt with the tongue. These can be only seen by dentists with the help of a very small mirror used by them. Sounds made with the tongue touching here (such as t, d, n) are called alveolar.

v)The tongue is a very important articulator and it can be moved into many different places and different shapes. It is usual to divide the tongue into different parts, though there are no clear dividing lines within its structure: tip, blade, front, back and root. (This use of the word “front” often seems rather strange at first.)

vi)The teeth (upper and lower) are shown at the front of the mouth, immediately behind the lips. The tongue is in contact with the upper side teeth for most speech sounds. Sounds made with the tongue touching the front teeth, such as English  are called dental. 

vii.The lips are important in speech. They can be pressed together (when we produce the sounds p, b), brought into contact with the teeth (as in f, v), or rounded to produce the lip-shape for vowels like uà. Sounds in which the lips are in contact with each other are called bilabial, while those with lip-to-teethcontact are called labiodental.

English Consonants and their importance

• Consonant is a speech sound produced by completely or partly stopping the air being breathed out through the mouth.(Hornby: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary).
• Consonant is a speech sound which is pronounced by stopping the air from flowing easily through the mouth, especially by closing the lips or touching the teeth with the tongue. (Cambridge University Press. : Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary).
• IPA (International Phonetics Alphabets) describes English consonants based on: A. Voicing; B. Place of articulation; and C. Manner of articulation.

A consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are :

• [p], pronounced with the lips;
• [t], pronounced with the front of the tongue;
• [k], pronounced with the back of the tongue;
• [h], pronounced in the throat;
• [f] and [s], pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and
• [m] and [n], which have air flowing through the nose (nasals).

Since the number of possible sounds in all of the world’s languages is much greater than the number of letters in any one alphabet, linguists believe (IPA) to be a unique and unambiguous symbol to each attested consonant. In fact, the English alphabet has fewer consonant letters than English has consonant sounds, so digraphs like “ch”, “sh”, “th”, and “zh” are used to extend the alphabet, and some letters and digraphs represent more than one consonant. For example, the sound spelled “th” in “this” is a different consonant than the “th”  sound  in  “thin”.  (In  the IPA,  they  are  transcribed [ð] and [θ], respectively.)

Contrasting with consonants are vowels that we will study in the next chapter.

Questions Regarding Consonants: In the case of consonantal articulations, a description must provide answers to the following questions:

• Is the airstream set in motion by the lungs or by some other means? ( pulmonic or non-pulmonic )
• Is the airstream forced outwards or sucked inwards? ( egressive or ingressive )
• Do the vocal folds vibrate or not? ( voiced or voiceless )
• Is the soft palate raised, directing the airstream wholly through the mouth, or lowered, allowing the passage of air through the nose? ( oral, or nasal or nasalized )
• At what point or points and between what organs does closure or narrowing take place? ( place of articulation )
• What is the type of closure or narrowing at the point of articulation? (manner of articulation)

Classification and Description of Speech Sounds

• While primarily the vibration of the vocal folds produces vowels, consonants are the speech sounds produced by the turbulent or explosive flow of air through constricted or obstructed parts of the vocal tract, known as articulators.
• A complete description should include: the production , transmission , and reception stages.The most convenient and brief descriptive technique continues to rely on articulatory criteria (consonants ) or on auditory judgements ( vowels ), or on a combination of both.

Describing Consonant Sounds

Consonant sounds are described by 3 things:

1. Is the sound voiced or voiceless? VOICING
2. Where is the sound constricted? PLACE OF ARTICULATION
3. How is the airstream constricted? MANNER OF ARTICULATION

Let us deal these facts in details.

Step 1: The first thing to state in describing a consonant is to indicate whether the sound is VOICED or VOICELESS

• voice sounds = vocal folds vibrate
• voiceless sounds = vocal folds do not vibrate (try this: put your hand on your throat when you pronounce the sound. If you feel a vibration, the sound is voiced.)

Step 2: The second thing is to tell where in the vocal tract the  sound  is articulated (the place of articulation)

Step 3: The third thing is to say how the air stream is  modified  by  the  vocal tract to produce the sound (manner of articulation)

     Voiced and Unvoiced Consonants: Consonants may also involve vibration of the vocal folds, as in the phoneme /v/, heard in the word voice. Such consonants are called voiced consonants, while consonants such as the /f/ of the word fish are referred to as unvoiced, since the vocal folds are simply held open during the production of these sounds.

The consonants may also be divided along a number of lines. Fricative consonants, or spirants, such as the aforementioned /f/ of fish and /s/ of sit, are marked by a steady, turbulent flow of air at a constriction created somewhere in the vocal tract other than at the vocal chords. Stop consonants, or plosives, on the other hand, such as the /p/   of push or the /g/ of goat, are produced by the build-up and sudden, explosive release of air pressure at some point in the vocal tract. Fricatives and stop consonants may be either voiced or unvoiced. Certain terms used in the description of speech sounds may be applied to both vowels and consonants.

Nasal sounds are those in which the nasal cavity plays a role in the transmission and broadcast of the vocal sound, whereas non-nasal sounds occur when the nasal cavity is cut off from the vocal tract by the velum during sound production. Continuants are those speech sounds that involve the continuous, steady flow of air from lungs to the environment, while stops involve the complete closure or obstruction of the vocal cavities at some point in the production of the sound.

Finally, there are some classes of phonemes that do not fit neatly into the vowel- consonant classification scheme described above. The sounds /l/, /r/, /m/, /n/, and /ng/, for example, though often thought of as consonants, are referred to as liquids or semi- vowels. The sounds /w/, /y/, and /h/ are referred to as transitionals in [Fletcher 1953]. Speech sounds referred to as affricates consist of a plosive or stop consonant immediately followed by a fricative or spirant, such as the German .

 Place of Articulation

Bilabial – uses both lips to create the sound such as the beginning sounds in pin, bust, well and the ending sound in seem.

Labiodental – uses the lower lip and upper teeth; examples include fin and van.

Dental/interdental – creates sound between the teeth such as the and thin.

Alveolar – is a sound created with the tongue and the ridge behind the upper teeth; examples include the beginning sounds of tin, dust, sin, zoo, and late and the /n/ in scene.

Palatal – uses the tongue and the hard palate to create the following sounds: shin, treasure, cheep, jeep, rate and yell.

Velar – makes the sound using the soft palate in the back of the mouth; sounds include kin, gust, and the -ng in sing.

Glottal– is a sound made in the throat between the vocal cords such as in the word hit 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.

Stops – 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 a voiced. An affricate is a consonant which begins as a stop (plosive), characterized by a complete obstruction of the outgoing airstream by the articulators, a buildup of air pressure in the mouth, and finally releases as a fricative, a sound produced by forcing air through a constricted space, which produces turbulence when the air is forced through a smaller opening. Depending on which parts of the vocal tract are used to constrict the airflow, that turbulence causes the sound produced to have a specific character (compare pita with pizza, the only difference is the release in /t/ and /ts/). There are two types of affricate in English. For an interactive example of each sound (including descriptive animation and video), click this link, then in the window that opens, click affricate, and select the appropriate sound.

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 exampled included late and rate.

Glides – 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.

Consonant Classification Chart

A consonant classification chart shows where the different consonant sounds are created in the mouth and throat area. This is important especially when trying to help children or adults learn to speak properly if they have speech problems.

A consonant classification chart shows where in the mouth different consonant sounds derive and how much air is needed to create the sounds. For this reason, the chart often has the location of the sound (place) across the top and the way the sound is produced (manner) down the side.But before that I will like to quote

‘’To summarize, the consonants we have been discussing so far may be described in terms of five factors: 1. state of the vocal folds (voiced or voiceless); 2. place of articulation; 3. central or lateral articulation; 4. soft palate raised to form a velic closure (oral sounds) or lowered (nasal sounds); and 5. manner of articulatory action. Thus, the consonant at the beginning of the word sing is a (1) voiceless, (2) alveolar, (3) central, (4) oral, (5) fricative; and the consonant at the end of sing is a (1) voiced, (2) velar, (3) central, (4) nasal, (5) stop. On most occasions, it is not necessary to state all five points. Unless a specific statement to the contrary is made, consonants are usually presumed to be central, not lateral, and oral rather than nasal. Consequently, points (3) and (4) may often be left out, so the consonant at the beginning of sing is simply called a voiceless alveolar fricative. When describing nasals, point (4) has to be specifically mentioned and point (5) can be left out, so the consonant at the end of sing is simply called a voiced velar nasal.’’

The Consonant Chart

Consonant Cluster: “A cluster is when two or more consonants of different places of articulation are produced together in the same syllable.”(Source: Linda I. House – Introductory Phonetics and Phonology) Note that clusters are determined based on the sounds, not the letters of the words. Initial clusters are usually formed by combining various consonants with the /s/, /r/, or /l/ phonemes. Examples: sleep [sli:p], green [gri:n], blue [blu:]

Medial clusters usually appear at the beginning of a second or third syllable in a multisyllabic word. Examples: regret [rɪgret], apply [əplaɪ], approve [əpru:v]• Final clusters are usually composed of a variety of phonemes including/sk/, /mp/, /ns/, /st/, and /ŋk/.Examples:desk [desk], camp [kæmp], mince [mɪns], fast [fɑ:st],bank [bæŋk].Clusters can appear in the initial, medial, or final positions of words.

Syllabically Uncertain Relationship With Speech Sounds:

We can notice l in apple, m in spasm, n in isn’t, r in centre. In such positions, they are often pronounced with a schwa preceding their consonant value. Most consonant letters are sometimes ‘silent’: that is, used with no sound value (some having lost it, others inserted but never pronounced); b in numb, c in scythe; comparably with handsome, foreign, honest, knee, talk, mnemonic, damn, psychology,

island, hutch, wrong, prix, key, laissez-faire. In general, consonant letters in English have an uncertain relationship with speech sounds.

Summary Let’s revise.

• Consonant is a speech sound produced by completely or partly stopping the air being breathed out through the mouth. (Hornby: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary).
• Consonant is a speech sound which is pronounced by stopping the air from flowing easily through the mouth, especially by closing the lips or touching the teeth with the tongue. (Cambridge University Press.: Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary).
• English consonants are described by the IPA (International Phonetics Alphabets) based on: A. Voicing; B. Place of articulation; and C. Manner of articulation.
• Voicing: The aspects of voicing are: voiced consonants (those created by the vibration of the vocal cords during production); and voiceless consonants (those created by the absence of vibration of the vocal cords during production).
• In phonetic chart of the English consonants, where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant.
• Place of Articulation: Place of articulation refers to the places where the air stream from the lungs or the sound stream from the larynx is constricted (limited) by the articulators.
• Manner of Articulation: Manner of articulation refers to how the air stream from the lungs is directed to the mouth and modified by the various structures to produce a consonant phoneme.
• The Description of Manner of Articulation: Plosive Produced by the obstruction of air stream from the lungs followed by a release of the air stream. Such as: [p, b, t, d, k, g]
• Nasal Produced by the release of the air through the nasal cavity. Such as: [m, n, ŋ]
• Fricative Produced by the release of a „friction like noise‟ created by the airstream escaping through a variant of narrow gaps in the mouth. Such as: [f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, h]
• Lateral Approximant Produced by the obstruction of the air stream at a point along the center of the oral track, with incomplete closure between one or both sides of the tongue and the roof of the tongue. Such as: [l]
• Approximant Produced by proximity (closeness) of two articulators without turbulence (hard movement and friction like noise).Such as: [w, ɹ (r), j]

Affricate Produced by involving more than one of those manners of articulation. Firstly, produce the sounds in the alveolar ridge, then followed by or combined with fricative sounds. Such as: [tʃ, dʒ] Thus the description of a consonant will include five kinds of information : (1) the nature of the air-stream mechanism; (2) the state of the glottis; (3) the position of soft palate (velum); (4) the articulators involved; and (5) the nature of the ‘stricture’.

Reference

• Chomsky, Noam (1998). On Language. The New Press, New York. ISBN 978- 1565844759.
• Derrida, Jacques (1967). Of Grammatology. The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801858305.
• Crystal, David (1990). Linguistics. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140135312.
• Ladefoged, P. and Johnson, K. (2011) A Course in Phonetics (6th edn) Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning. P17