2. VOWELS & CONSONANTS
FOR LINKING
To understand linking, it is important to
know the difference between vowel
sounds and consonant sounds.
The important thing in linking is the
sound, not the letter.
Often the letter and the sound are the
same, but not always.
For example, the word "pay" ends with:
the consonant letter "y"
the vowel sound "a"
3. We could distinguishing all of the consonant
sounds of English through the properties of;
Voicing
Nasality
Place and manner of articulation
5. CONSONANTS
Consonants = obstruents + sonorants
Obstruents: (oral) stops, affricates, and fricatives
Sonorants: nasals and liquids (l,r)
o Consonants can be defined by:
• Point of articulation (or “place”):
Specification of the active and passive articulators.
• Manner of articulation:
Oral stop; nasal stop; fricative; affricate; lateral;
flap; approximant; and some others.
6. Places of articulation: labial
• Bilabial: made with
two lips
(pie, buy, my)
• Labiodental: lower
tip and
Upper front teeth
(fie, vie).
7. Places of articulation:
coronal
• Dental: tongue tip or blade and
upper front teeth (thigh, thy).
(interdental: the tip of the
tongue protrudes between the
upper and the lower front teeth).
• Alveolar: tongue tip or blade and
the alveolar ridge (tie, die, nigh,
sigh, zeal, lie).
• Retroflex: tongue tip and back of
the alveolar ridge (rye, row, ray).
• Palato-Alveolar (post-alveolar):
tongue blade and the back of the
alveolar ridge (shy, she, show).
8. Places of articulation: dorsal
• Palatal: front of the
tongue and hard
palate (you). Palatal
sounds are
sometimes classified
as coronal.
• Velar: back of the
tongue and the soft
palate (hack, hag,
hang).
9. Oro-nasal process
[From: Dan Jurafsky slide]
Oral sounds: soft palate Nasal sound: soft palate is
is raised (closing the passage). lowered, so air passes through
the nose.
10. MANNERS OF ARTICULATION
Stop
Fricative: near closure, creating frication (heavy air
turbulence)
Affricate (combined stop and fricative)
Approximant (no turbulence) (y,w,r)
Lateral approximant (l) obstruction in the middle, air
passage around the side of the tongue.
Tap or flap: American symbol [D], IPA [ɾ]
11.
12. EXAMPLES FOR
CONSONANTS
Stop
b as in bat, sob, cubby
d as in date, hid, ado
g as in gas, lag, ragged
p as in pet, tap, repeat
t as in tap, pet, attack
k as in king, pick, picking
13. Fricatives
f as in fail, life
v as in veil, live
Ɵ as in thin, wrath
ð as in this, bathe
s as in soft, miss
z as in zoo, as
š (American) or ʃ (IPA) as in shame,
mash
ž (American) or ǯ (IPA)as in triage,
garage, azure,
h as in help, vehicular
14. Affricates
č (American) or tʃ (IPA) as in cheap, hatch
ǰ (American) or ʤ (IPA) as in jump, hedge
Nasal
m as in map, him
n as in knot, tin (alveolar POA)
ñ as in canyon
ŋ as in sing, gingham, dinghy
Liquids
l as in large, gull
r as in red, jar
Glides and semi-consonants
y (American) or j (IPA) as in boy, yellow
w as in wall, cow
15. VOWELS
o Vowels are displayed in a two-dimensional chart,
corresponding only roughly to the position of the
tongue, and the first two formants of the vowel. Plus:
whether the lips are rounded
o Monophthong or diphthong (no movement, or
movement)
o The fact that it’s harder is reflected in the fact that
there is more than one way in which it’s done. IPA is
one way; American is another.
o Vowels are harder to characterize articulatorily, but
we try!
