Consonants

Consonants

Produced by restricting and then releasing the flow of air in three ways:

• vocal chords

• changing the part of the anatomy — restricts air flow

• changing the extent to which air flow is restricted

Voiceless consonants

Consonants with relatively little vibration of the vocal chords

Voiced consonants

Consonants with relatively more vibration of the vocal chords

Consonant categories (anatomy)

• labial

• dental

• labiodental

• alveolar

• palatal

• velar

• glottal

Consonant categories (extent of airflow restriction)

• stop

• fricative

• affricate

• nasal

• liquid

• glide

Labial

Air flow is restricted with the lips

Dental

Air flow is restricted with the teeth

• voiceless — [t]

• voiced — [d]

Bilabial

Both lips are used

Labiodental

Air flow is restricted with the top teeth on the bottom lip

• “v”

Alveolar

Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on hard palate (alveolum) behind the top of front teeth

• voiceless — '“t”

• voiced — “d”

Palatal

Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the soft palate behind the behind the alveolum

Velar

Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue far back in the mouth

• voiceless — “k”

• voiced — “g”

Glottal

Air flow is restricted by tightening the folds in the vocal chords (glottis)—(“uh-oh”)

Stop

Air flow is stopped and released quickly

Fricative

Air flow is released gradually

Affricate

Air flow is stopped and released gradually

Nasal

Air flow is channeled through the nasal cavity

Liquid

Air flow is channeled around the sides of the tongue

Glide

Air flow is only partially restricted (these sounds are often called semi-vowels)

Minimal Pair

When words only differ by one sound/phoneme (phonetically)

• Ex.)

  • seen [sin] and sing [siŋ]

  • ba[t] and ba[d]

Complementary distribution

Different sound, different environment

• Ex.) pot & spot

Contrastive distribution

Different sounds, same environment

• Ex.) bad & bat

Phonemes

A group of allophones in complimentary distribution → represented as - /p/

Allophones

One of the sounds in a phoneme, that usually goes unheard → represented as - /p^h/