5. CLASSIFICATION
1. Manner of articulation: The
manner of articulation is concerned
with airflow i.e. the paths it takes
and the degree to which it is
impeded by vocal tract
constrictions.
2. The place of articulation refers to where the
sound is produced. The plosives have different
places of articulation. For example, /p/ and /b/ are
bilabial since the lips are pressed together; /t/ and
/d/ are alveolar since the tongue blade is pressed
against the alveolar ridge; the plosives /k/ and /g/
are velar sounds.
3. Voicing: Voicing refers to whether or not
the vocal cords are vibrating. The
plosives/p/t/k/ are always voiceless. On the
other hand, /b/d/g/ are sometimes fully
voiced and sometimes voiceless.
6. 1. Initial Position: The
closing phase for /p/ t/ k/
and /b/d/g/ takes place
silently. During the hold
phase of there is no
voicing in /p/t/k/, but in
/b/d/g/, on the other hand,
we normally very little
voicing.
2. Medial position: The
pronunciation of /p/t/k/
and /b/d/g/ in medial
position depends to some
extent on whether the
syllables preceding and
following the plosive are
stressed (both depend on
the context).
3. Final Position: The
final /b/d/g/ have little
voicing. /p/t/k/ are
voiceless. The plosion for
both is non audible. The
difference is that the
vowels preceding /p/t/k/
are shorter than the ones
preceding /b/g/d/
8. • Bilabial plosives
• These are
produced with the
two lips coming
together to form a
complete closure
and they are,
therefore, known
as bilabials, i.e.
two lips. They are:
• ‘p’ as in pit and
cop
• ‘b’ as in bit, and
lab
• Alveolar plosives
• The second pair of
voiceless-voiced
plosives is
articulated with the
tip of the tongue
contacting the
alveolar ridge just
behind the upper
incisors. They are:
• ‘t’ as in tin and hat
• ‘d’ as in din and had
• Velar plosives
• The third pair of
plosive sounds is
made with the back
of the tongue
contacting the soft
palate or velum.
They are:
• ‘k’ as in coat and
lock
• ‘g’ as in goat and
log
9.
10. • Dental fricatives
• These are made by
the tongue tip
nearly contacting
the back of the
upper incisors. The
tongue is relatively
flat and a narrow
slit is formed in the
mouth. The friction
is created as the air
passes over the
tongue and past the
upper incisors.
They are:
• ‘th’ as in thin and
hearth (voiceless)
• ‘th’ as in that and
loathe (voiced)
• Alveolar fricatives
• These are formed
by the front of the
tongue nearly
contacting the
alveolar ridge. They
are:
• ‘s’ as in sun and
house (voiceless)
• ‘z’ as in zoo and
raise (voiced)
• Post-alveolar
fricatives
• These are made
further back in the
mouth, with the
middle of the
tongue coming into
near contact with
the palate just
behind the alveolar
ridge. They are:
• ‘sh’ as in shop and
bash (voiceless)
• ‘zh’ as measure and
beige (voiced)
11. • Glottal fricative
• There is one more
fricative sound in
English which is
distinguished on
the basis that it is
the only fricative
that does not pair
with another
sound. It is made
deep down in the
throat by allowing
air to escape
through the gap
between the vocal
folds (the glottis):
• ‘h’ as in house and
who (voiceless)
• Affricates
• All of the
consonant sounds
described so far
are produced with
either a complete
obstruction of the
airflow or a
narrowing of the
mouth passage.
Affricates are,
however, produced
by a combination
of these two
methods. ‘ch’ as in
chore and hatch
(voiceless)
• ‘j’ as in jaw and
large (voiced)
• Approximants
• Approximants are
consonants which
are produced
without either
complete closure
(e.g. as in plosives
and nasals) or near
closure (e.g. as in
fricatives). Rather,
they are produced
in such a way that
two articulators
approximate
closely but not
such that friction is
created.
12. Summary of English Consonants
If we were to list all the speech sounds in a
particular language that a person is capable of
articulating this constitutes their phonetic
inventory. Table 1 summarizes all 24 of the
English consonant sounds in relation to their
manner of articulation (i.e. whether they are a
plosive, nasal, fricative, affricate or
approximant) and their place of articulation
(i.e. bilabial, labio-dental, dental, alveolar,
post-alveolar, palatal, velar, glottal).=
13. manner place of articulation
bilabial labio-dental dental alveolar post-alveolar palatal velar glottal
plosive p b t d k g
nasal m n ng
fricative f v th th s z sh zh h
affricate ch j
approxi
mant
w r/l y
14. Overview of the Plosives
The plosives are unique among phoneme
categories in English in that they involve
three distinct phases which are
sequential in time, in addition to
coarticulation effects on preceding and
following segments. We shall see,
however, that not all phases occur in all
allophonic realizations of the plosives.
15. • The three phases are the following:
• Silence - The articulators totally block the airstream. There may be some
underlying voicing activity during part of this phase. The air pressure
increases just behind the obstruction.
• Plosion - The articulators quickly move away from each other. An
explosive burst of air rushes through the opening, involving energy in most
or all of the audible spectrum.
• Aspiration - The articulators are now further apart, and the air pressure
at the site of the obstruction has fallen so that the speech sound is no
longer a burst with energy in all frequencies, but bands of aspiration
which are more narrowly concentrated and which move toward the
formant values in the next phoneme.
16. • In English there are six plosives: three
voiceless and three voiced. It happens
that in English the voiceless plosives
are normally aspirated, while the
voiced plosives are not.
Details
• Bilabial - Voiceless /pc/ and /ph/, voiced
/bc/ and /b/. Locus: low and greatly
dependent on the preceding and
succeeding phonemes. Shape to look
for: bilabial rounding.
Of the
• Alveolar - Voiceless /tc/ and /th/, voiced
/dc/ and /d/. Loci: 1800 and 2800 Hz.
Shape to look for: alveolar flags.
• Velar - Voiceless /kc/ and /kh/, voiced
/gc/ and /g/.
plosives
17. There are three allophones
of the voiceless plosives:
The three-phase plosive.
This allophone occurs
primarily in syllable-initial
position in stressed
syllables. It includes all
three of the regulation
phases: silence, burst,
and aspiration. We use
the closure labels /pc/,
/tc/ and /kc/ followed by
the release labels /ph/,
/th/, and /kh/.
The two-phase plosive.
This allophone lacks the
aspiration component. In
voiceless plosives, it
occurs after /s/ and in
unstressed syllable-initial
position. We still use the
closure labels /pc/, /tc/,
and /kc/ and the release
labels /ph/, /th/, and /kh/ if
we are doing phonemic
labelling. If we are doing
phonetic labelling, we
use the unaspirated
equivalents /p/, /t/, and /k/
for the release.
The one-phase plosive.
This allophone lacks both
the plosive and aspiration
components. It thus
includes only silence,
and is called an
unreleased plosive. This
allophone occurs in
syllable-final position, or
in multi-plosive strings as
discussed below. We use
only the closure labels
/pc/, /tc/, and /kc/. See
Figure 7 for examples of
unreleased voiceless
plosives.
18.
19. ENGLISH PLOSIVES
Well this chapter was the first that I learned about manner of articulation and
the objective was identify the place of articulation for each plosive
consonants.
Bilabial = p (vl) b (vd)
Alveolar = t (vl) d (vd)
Velar = k (vl) g (vd)
Besides, I learned that each plosive consonant has initial, middle and final
position. In conclusion, I enjoyed too much learning about this chapter
because I could produce these sounds in a correct way.
20. CONCLUSIONS:
ENGLISH
All plosives are produced
by a complete obstruction
of the airflow at some
position in the mouth, for
example by the lips coming
together. Air from the lungs
is then compressed behind
the temporary obstruction
and the air pressure builds
up in the mouth. The
obstruction is then
removed (in this case, by
the lips parting) and the air
rushes out of the mouth
with a slight ‘explosion’,
hence the name ‘plosive’.
SPANISH
Los sonidos oclusivos nos
ayudan a mejorar nuestra
pronunciación y pronunciar
muy bien las palabras para
que así se nos entienda
cuando estemos leyendo
algún contexto no
solamente en español
también en inglés y francés
es por eso que existe una
variación de plosive
sounds bilabial, alveolar,
velar para mejor correcto
uso de nuestro idioma.
FRENCH
21. CONTRATIVE CONCLUSIONS
The trouble starts where a voiceless
plosive is not aspirated in an environment
where we would expect it to be aspirated,
or where voiced plosives have more
aspiration than normal. Voiceless plosives
become unaspirated in word-final position,
due mainly to laziness, or possibly a
shortage of breath! It is still not impossible
to tell unaspirated (but released) word-final
plosives from word-final released voiced
plosives, though, because voiced plosives
are often released with a schwa. If a
voiceless plosive is released with a schwa,
the burst is aspirated, and so what was lost
has been found!
