UNIT 8: THE ENGLISH PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM. CONSONANTS.

PHONETIC
SYMBOLS. CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH & SPANISH PHONOLOGICAL
SYSTEMS.

1. INTRODUCTION
When one person wants to convey a message to another he can use a variety of
means. He may write it down on a piece of paper (parchment, wood, bone, clay, was, stone)
and hand it over; he may transmit it in sign language, as deaf mutes do; he may stand one
apl and wave or drape flags in a pre-arranged way to the recipient standing on another; or
he may prefer to flash a mirror. All these are visual means. On the other hand, the message
may be passed by audible means, by fog-horn, morse-key or drum; or it may be simply
spoken: transmitted by word of mouth, which is, and is likely to remain, by far the most
frequent medium of communication between man and his neighbour.

The sounds of speech are all around us. We use, hear, enjoy, and suffer from them;
in general, we know remarkably little about them. It seems worthwhile, therefore, to attempt
to explain how speech sounds can to some extent be pointed down, so that we may have a
firmer foundation for understanding how sounds contribute to the process of communicating.

2. THE PRODUCTION OF SPEECH

The Speech Chain
Any manifestation of language through speech is the result of a highly complicated
series of events. The communication in the sound of a given utterance involves several
activities on the part of the speaker. The first stage is said to be several activities on the part
of the speaker. The first stage is said to be PSYCHOLOGICAL (i.e. the formulation of the
concept at a linguistic level in the brain). Then, the nervous system transmits this message
to the organs of speech and we face the second stage at a
PHYSIOLOGICAL/ARTICULATORY level (i.e. the production of the utterance). The
movement of our organs of speech will create disturbances in the air, or whatever the
medium through which we are talking, which constitutes the third stage in our chain: the
PHYSICAL or ACOUSTIC. Since communication generally requires a listener as well as a
speaker, these stages will be reversed at the listening end.

Our immediate concern, however, is with the speaker’s behaviour and more
especially, on the concrete speech level, with the activity involved in the production of
sounds. For this reason, we must now examine the speaker’s articulatory stage (his speech
mechanism) to discover how the various organs behave in order to produce the sounds of
speech.

The Speech Mechanism

Man possesses, in common with many other animals, the ability to produce sounds
by using certain of his body’s mechanisms. The human being differs from other animals in
that he has been able to organise the range of sounds which he can emit into a highly
efficient system of communication. So as to do so, we get hold of a complex mechanism
which extends from the lungs to the mouth and nose. The description of any sound, in our
case vowels, will need the provision of certain basic information:

➔ The nature of the air-stream; usually, this will be expelled by direct action of
the lungs. It may also be relevant to assess the force of exhalation.
➔ The action of the vocal cords; in particular, whether they are closed, wide
apart, or vibrating.
➔ The position of the soft palate will decide whether or not the sound has nasal
resonances.
➔ The disposition of the various movable organs of the mouth (e.g., the shape
of the lips and tongue, in order to determine the nature of the related oral and
upper pharyngeal cavities).

In addition, it may be necessary to provide other information concerning, for instance,

a particular secondary stricture or tenseness wich may accompany the primary articulation;
or again, when it is a question of a sound with no steady state to describe, an indication of
the kind of movement which is taking place.

3. THE ENGLISH PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM

Phonetics vs. Phonology
The most obvious aspect of language is speech. Speech is not essential to the
definition of an infinitely productive communication system, such as is constituted by a
language. But, in fact, speech is the universal material of human language, and the
conditions of speaking and hearing have, throughout human history, shaped and determined
its development. The study of speech sounds and the physiology of speaking is called
PHONETICS.

Phonetics covers much of the ground loosely referred to in language study as

pronunciation. But, from a rather different point of view, speech sounds are also studied in
PHONOLOGY. Every language makes use of a wide range of articulations and resultant
sounds that are available within the human vocal and auditory resources. Each language
uses a somewhat different range, and this is partly responsible for the difficulty of learning to
speak a foreign language and even more if it is spoken “with an accent”. But mere
repertoires of sounds are not all that is involved. Far fewer general classes of sounds that
are phonetically different. For example, the English ‘t’ sounds at the beginning and end of
‘tot’ and at the end of ‘stouter’ are all different, though these differences are not readily
noticed by English speakers; and rightly, the same letter is used for them all.

However, what is distinctive in one language may not be distinctive in another, or

may be used differently; this is an additional difficulty to overcome in learning to speak and
understand a foreign language. languages differ in the ways in which consonant and vowel
sounds can be grouped into syllables in words. English and German tolerate several
consonants before and after a single vowel sound (‘ng’ and ‘th’ stand for one sound each).
Italian does not have such complex syllables in words, and in Japanese and Swahili, for
example, the ratio of consonant and vowel sounds in syllables and words is much more
even.

Speakers for such languages find English words of the sort just mentioned very hard
to pronounce, though to an English person they are perfectly “natural”, which in this context
means within the sounds and sound sequences whose mastery is acquired in early
childhood as part of one’s mother tongue. All these considerations relating to the use of
speech sounds in particular languages fall under the general heading of PHONOLOGY.

The English System

The roots of the English phonological system can be traced back to Old English, the
earliest form of the English language. During this period, English was heavily influenced by
Germanic languages brought to England by Anglo-Saxon settlers. Old English had a
relatively simple phonological system with distinct vowel sounds. Then, the English
phonological systems experienced several changes throughout history and those changes
are key to what we know and understand for the current English phonological system. Today,
the English phonological system is characterized by a combination of historical influences,
regional accents, and modern developments. It remains a dynamic and evolving aspect of
the language.

English shows a great dialectical (grammar and lexical items) and accentual
(pronunciation) variation. An account of all the different possibilities within the English
phonological system may sounds like a hard nut to crack. We can not expect a person in
Sydney to speak in the same way as another in Delhi, Manchester or Boston. Thus, we may
have considered it convenient to focus on a particular variety of English which is not better or
worse than others, just different; British Received Pronunciation (RP), by definition, is the
usual speech of educated people living in London and south-eastern England is one of the
many different forms of standard speech. Other pronunciations, although not standard, are
entirely acceptable in their own right on conversational levels.

Once we have stated which variety of English we are going to focus on, it seems
reasonable to make explicit the phonological model to follow. As we all know, throughout
history many approaches and models have been offered by well-known phoneticians. In fact,
there have been such different approaches and models that the amount of English
phonemes has ranged from 6 to 23. In British English, we can observe three main trends
derived from the focus lying on Timbre (Quality) and Quantity (Length).

The Edinburgh school with scholars such as Abercrombie and Ladeforeg does not
pay attention to Quantity or Length, and different phonemes are considered depending on
their features, monophthong in this case. Thus, their transcription of ‘bit-beat’ /bɪt-bit/
shows a different sound since for them the second instance presents both consonants more
separate than the first one. A second major trend reinforces the distinctive significance of
Length. So for Daniel Jones, from the London School, the length of a given monophthong is
crucial in order to be distinguished from another such as ‘ship’ /ʃɪp/ vs. ‘sheep’ /ʃiːp/.

After these two models, Gimson, also from the London school, considers both
approaches complementary and therefore establishes his own model by coining both ideas
in EPD-14 (‘English Pronouncing Dictionary’ 14th edition). This model is the most
widespread one as it pays attention to both the Quantity and Quality of monophthongs, and
establishes the current distinction between short and long monophthongs.

It seems reasonable to highlight that there is no language acquisition without the

acquisition of the phonological system of such language, as it is treaded in the Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages (CERF). In the context of English
language proficiency, specific phonological features may be considered in language
assessments or curriculum development, but these considerations typically align with
broader proficiency levels outlined in frameworks like the CEFR. For instance, phonological
features might be relevant in assessing speaking and listening skills.
 4. ENGLISH CONSONANTS
A consonant is any speech sound, such as that represented by ‘t,g,j’, or ‘z’, that is
characterised by an articulation with a closure or narrowing of the vocal tract such that a
complete or partial blockage of the flow of air is produced. According to the
‘Merriam-Webster’ it is ‘one of a class of speech sounds characterised by constriction or
enclosure at one or more points in the breath channel’.

Consonants are usually classified according to PLACE OF ARTICULATION (the

location of the stricture made in the vocal tract, such as dental, bilabial, or velar), the
MANNER OF ARTICULATION (how the obstruction of the airflow is accomplished, as in
stops, fricatives, approximants, trills, taps and laterals), and the presence or absence of
VOICING, NASALIZATION, ASPIRATION, or other PHONATION. For example, the sound
for ‘s’ is described as a voiceless alveolar fricative; the sound for ‘m’ is a voiced bilabial
nasal stop. Additional classificatory information may indicate whether the air stream
powering the production of the consonant is from the lungs (the pulmonary airstreams
mechanism) or some other airstreams mechanism and whether the flow of air is ingressive
or regressive. The production of consonants may also involve secondary articulations, that
is, articulations additional to the place and manner of articulation defining the primary
stricture in the vocal tract.

To summarize, a consonant may be described by reference to seven factors:

1. State of the glottis.
2. Secondary articulation (if any).
3. Place of articulation.
4. Type of airstreams.
5. Central or lateral articulation.
6. Velic closure-oral or nasal.
7. Manner of articulation.
Thus, the consonant at the beginning of the word ‘swin’ is a voiceless, labialised,
alveolar, pulmonic, central, oral, and fricative. Unless a specific statement is made to the
contrary, consonants are usually presumed to have a pulmonic airstream and no secondary
articulation, and it is also assumed that they are not laterals or nasal. Consequently, points
2, 4, 5, and 6 are often disregarded and a three-term description- STATE OF THE GLOTTIS,
PLACE OF ARTICULATION, and MANNER OR ARTICULATION is sufficient, as happens in
the following description: voiceless alveolar fricative.

The State of the Glottis

 Consonants can be classified depending on the presence or abstinence of voicing,
nasalisation, aspiration, or other phonation. Thus, the presence or absence of voice (i.e. the
vibration or lack of vibration of the vocal cords/folds) gives rise to either VOICED or
VOICELESS consonants. However, a voiceless/voiced pair such as /s/ and /z/ are
distinguished not only by the presence or obscene of voicing but also by the degree of
breath and muscular effort involved in the articulation, and we then talk of FORTIS and
LENIS consonants. Broadly speaking, voiced consonants tend to be articulated with
relatively weak energy, whereas those which are always voiceless are relatively strong.
Therefore, in general terms, voiceless consonants are also regarded as fortis. Yet a given
voiced sound may become voiceless and still be lenis, or a given voiceless sound may
become voiced and still fortis, depending on the pressure of the airstreams.

Place of Articulation
Every consonant sound is produced because of air interference in the oral tract,
interference which can be classified depending on the place where it occurs. The chief
points of articulation are the following:
I. BILABIAL: the two lips are the primary articulations (e.g. /p,b,m/).
II. LABIO-DENTAL: the lower lip articulated with the upper teeth (e.g. /f,v/).
III. DENTAL: the tongue tip and rims articulate with the upper teeth (e.g. /Ө,ð /).
IV. ALVEOLAR: the blade, or tip and blade, of the tongue articulates with the
ჳalveolar ridge (e.g. /t,d,l,n,s,z/).
V. POST-ALVEOLAR: the tip of the tongue articulates with the rear part of the
alveolar ridge (e.g. /tr, dr, r/).
VI. PALATO-ALVEOLAR: the blade, or the tip and the blade, of the tongue
articulates with the alveolar ridge and there is at the same time a raising of
the front of the tongue towards the hard palate (e.g. /ഽ, ჳ, tഽ, dჳ/).
VII. PALATAL: the front of the tongue articulates with the soft palate (e.g. /k, g, η/).
VIII. GLOTTAL: an obstruction, or a narrowing causing friction but not vibration,
between the vocal cords (e.g. /h, ၇/).

Manner of Articulation
The obstruction made by the organs may range from total, intermittent, and partial, or
may merely constitute a narrowing sufficient to cause friction. The chief types of articulation,
in decreasing degrees of closure, are as follows:

01. Complete Closure

 a. PLOSIVE: a complete closure at some point in the mouth, behind which the
air pressure builds up and can be released explosively (e.g. /p,b,t,d,k,g,၇/).
b. AFFRICATIVE: a complete closure at some point in the mouth, behind which
the air pressure builds up; the separation of the organs is slow compared with
that of a plosive so that friction is a characteristic second element of the
sound (e.g. /tഽ, dჳ, tr, dr/).
c. NASAL: a complete closure at some point in the mouth but, the soft palate
being lowered, the air escapes through the nose. These sounds are
continuants and, in the voiced form, have no noise component; they are, to
this extent, vowel-like (e.g. /m, n, η/).
02. Intermittent Closure
a. TRILL or ROLL: a trill results when an articulator is held loosely fairly close to
another articulator so that it is set into vibration by the airstreams. The tongue
tip and blade, the uvula, and the lips are the only articulators that can be used
in this way. Tongue tip trills occur in some forms of Scottish English in words
such as ‘rye’ and ‘ire’.
b. TAP: a tap /ɾ/ is produced if one articulator is thrown against another, as when
the loosely held tongue tip makes a single tap against the upper teeth or the
alveolar ridge. The consonant in the middle of a word such as ‘letter’ or
‘Betty? is often made in this way in American English.
03. Partial Closure
a. LATERAL: a partial closure is made at some point in the mouth, the air stream
being allowed to escape on one or both sides of the contact. These sounds
may be continuant and non-fricative and therefore vowel-like, as in /l/.
04. Narrowing
a. FRICATIVE: two organs approximate to such extent that the air stream
passes between them with friction (e.g. (f, v, Ө, ð, ഽ, ჳ, s, z, h/). The
mechanisms used in the production of these sounds may be compared to the
physical forces involved when the wind “whistles” around a corner.

We cannot conclude our section on consonant types, regarding manner of

articulation, without dealing with a final category, APPROXIMANTS. The reason why they
have not been dealt with before is that they have neither the closure nor the noise
component characteristics of consonantal articulations; they are, however, frequently
variants of consonantal types, as well as having a functional status of consonants and may
therefore be included under this heading. Thus /w/ and /j/ (also referred to as semivowels)
are usually included in the consonantal category on functional grounds, but from the point of
view of phonetic description, they are more properly treated as vowel glides. The consonants
in the words ‘we’ and ‘you’ are examples of approximants.

The states of the glottis, places of articulation, and manner of articulation discussed
above are sufficient to distinguish between the major contrasts among the consonants of
English and many other languages. But additional possibilities have to be taken into account
in a more detailed description of English. However, and for the sake of brevity, we shall not
deal with all the allophonic variants of English consonants. Besides, as we know, our
description has provided a general overview of individual consonants in isolation. However,
they hardly occur in isolation but rather in clusters which somewhat condition their
distribution and give rise to different phenomena, as we shall see now.

5. CONSONANT MEETINGS
Adjacent Sounds
The meeting of identical sounds, consonants in this case, can bring about:
SPLITTING, REDUCTION, SYNCOPE, AND APOCOPE.

I. SPLITTING: each of them preserves their own status, which is common in English
and in Spanish careful speech (e.g. ‘I-have-known’).
II. REDUCTION: when one element falls and the other rhymes the same; the latter
acting both as head and ‘coda’. (e.g. ‘next station’ /nɛks’teɪʃən/ instead of /nɛkst
ˈsteɪʃən/). Thus it consists of uttering once something which should be repeated, but
whose acoustic impression is identical to the form which has been correctly uttered.
III. SYNCOPE: it is a contraction at the inner position of the form. (e.g. /ˈɪntrəstɪŋ/ for
‘interesting’).
IV. APOCOPE: it is the loss at the end of the form (e.g. ‘bread n butter’ instead of using
and).

Contextual Variation
The effects and influence of surrounding sounds in others. There are four main
phenomena: ASSIMILATION, ELISION, UNION, and JUNCTION.

I. ASSIMILATION: regressive assimilation refers to the phenomena in which a given

sound influences the previous one (e.g, in the case of ‘inferior’ /ɪnˈfɪəriər/, since the
sound ‘f’ influences ‘n’ in its becoming labiodental /ɪηˈfɪəriər/). On the other hand,
progressive assimilation refers to the phenomenon in which a given sound influences
 the following one (e.g. in ‘open’ being pronounced /ˈoʊpən/, the sound ‘n’ becomes
bilabial due to the previous sound ‘p’).
II. ELISION: particularly common in colloquial speech. It involves the elision or
omission. This elision can be due to assimilation (see above) or just omission. The
latter usually occurs when three consonant sounds meet and the one in the middle is
a plosive. Then this stop will be omitted as in ‘asked’ /a:st/.
III. UNION: when two inter-syllable plosive consonants meet in English, there is only
plosion in the last one as in the case of ‘symphony’ /ˈsɪmfəni/.
IV. JUNCTION: it refers to the distinction of two identical sequences on the grounds of a
junction phoneme. Thus, ‘a name’ differs from ‘an aim’ in the greater duration of /n/.

6. CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS WITH SPANISH

A brief account of the similarities and differences between English and Spanish
consonants will be touched on by following both their Articulatory description and their
distribution.

The exploration of consonantal similarities and differences between English and

Spanish, two widely spoken languages, unveils nuanced aspects of their phonetic
landscapes. This essay delves into the articulatory descriptions and distributional patterns of
consonants in both languages, employing the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for
precision.

ARTICULATORY DESCRIPTION
Similarities

Both English and Spanish exhibit commonalities in their articulatory descriptions.

Plosives, foundational to both phonologies, include voiceless and voiced stops. English
features voiceless stops /p, t, k/ and voiced stops /b, d, ɡ/, mirroring the Spanish repertoire
of /p, t, k/ and /b, d, ɡ/. Additionally, fricatives form a substantial segment in both languages,
with shared sounds like /f, θ, s/. Nasals also find a place in both phonetic inventories, with
English presenting /m, n, ŋ/ and Spanish including /m, n/.

Differences

However, distinctions emerge in the presence of affricates. While English integrates

/tʃ, dʒ/ into its consonantal fabric, Spanish lacks affricates. Furthermore, the articulation of
certain sonorants differs, as English incorporates /w, j/ alongside /l, r/, whereas Spanish
restricts itself to /l, r/.

DISTRIBUTION (FONOTAXIS)
Similarities

In examining distribution patterns, both languages share similarities across initial,

medial, and final positions. At the word-initial position, a spectrum of consonants is
permissible in both English and Spanish. Similarly, word-medial positions exhibit flexibility in
accommodating diverse consonantal configurations. In word-final positions, both languages
allow specific consonants to conclude lexical units.

Differences

Nonetheless, divergences arise in syllable-initial and intervocalic positions. English

demonstrates a penchant for intricate consonant clusters at the beginning of syllables, a trait
less pronounced in Spanish. In the intervocalic environment, English permits certain clusters
and singletons that Spanish eschews, marking a distinction in their phonotactic constraints.
Additionally, syllable-final positions underscore differences, with English showcasing a more
varied array of consonant clusters compared to the relatively simpler configurations in
Spanish.

In conclusion, the comparison of English and Spanish consonants unveils a complex

interplay of shared features and distinctive elements. The articulatory descriptions illuminate
commonalities in stops, fricatives, nasals, and sonorants, while differences emerge in the
realm of affricates and consonant clusters. Distributional patterns across word-initial, medial,
and final positions draw parallels, yet disparities surface in syllable-initial, intervocalic, and
syllable-final environments. This exploration not only enriches our understanding of the
phonetic intricacies of these languages but also underscores the importance of considering
both articulatory and distributional aspects for a comprehensive analysis of their consonantal
systems.

8. CONCLUSION
Learners’ situations and requirements present so many variables that it is difficult to
give advice of general applicability. What is clear is that, in teaching pronunciation, we are
concerned especially with imparting motor and auditory skills rather than with inculcating the
kind of logical agility such as may be involved in the acquisition of a new grammar, since the
knowledge of the pronunciation rules is of little value if the learner is unable to transmit a rule
in efficiency articulated speech.

Besides, we cannot expect a young learner to ‘learn’ or ‘digest’ the whole English
vocalic system as if it were history. Rather, the learner should be given enough input in order
to help him grasp and familiarise himself with the system and not force him to produce at
early stages if they do not feel at ease. Since it is generally the case that the acquisition of a
second language's pronunciation becomes increasingly difficult after adolescence.
Furthermore, every effort may be made to overcome the interference from the sound system
of the L1, through which the new, English vocalic sounds are being filtered.

As phoneticians… that discover a sound as an explorer …

9. BIBLIOGRAPHY