Manner of articulation 

Based on how air flows through the vocal tract, consonants can be broadly divided into obstruents and sonorants. Obstruents are consonants produced with an obstruction of the airflow, and sonorants, with little obstruction of the air flow. 

Obstruents

Most consonants are obstruents. With obstruents, there is turbulence in the airflow as the air flow is obstructed or restricted in some manner. Depending on the manner of restricting the air flow, obstruents can be further divided into three types: plosives (or stops), fricatives, and affricates. Most obstruents occur as voiced and voiceless pairs, with two sounds being produced identically from a mechanical standpoint. That is, they occur in the same place and in the same manner. Their only difference is the use or non-use of the vocal cords. 

Plosives (stops)

Plosives or stops are sounds that are made by popping the air, like popping a balloon. When popping, we exhale breath, and this process is called aspiration. To make the pop, we first need to stop the air stream entirely. This explains why plosives are also called stops. And then we release the air all at once. There are 7 plosive sounds, which are /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/ and the glottal stop (/ʔ/). The glottal stop is not a phoneme of English, but it is used for a special case, as an allophone of /t/, which we learn in the section on /t/. Plosives are all produced by the same method: stop the air, and then pop the air. They differ in where the stop happens. For the /p, b/ pair, the stop happens at the lips. For the /t, d/ pair, the stop happens at the tooth ridge, which is also called the alveolar ridge. For the /k, g/ pair, the stop happens at the velum. And for glottal stop (/ʔ/), the stop happens at the glottis. For this glottal stop, the space between the vocal cords is closed completely (very briefly), and then released. We can find the glottal stop when we say the expression ‘uh-oh!’ Within the pairs, /p, t, k/ are voiceless, and /b, d, g/ are voiced. Sounds are called ‘voiced’ when the vocal cord vibrates while the sounds are produced. 

English consonants: Plosives

Fricatives

Fricatives are sounds that are made by friction. It is like air escaping from a hole in a balloon. For fricative consonants, two parts of the vocal tract, such as the tongue and the teeth, come very close to each other, making a very small narrow opening for air to escape. Air hisses through the small space in-between. So the final sound is a friction-like hissing sound. The air stream is never completely blocked, so the sound can continue. There are 9 fricatives, which are /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/, /z/, /∫/, /ᴣ/, and /h/. 

English consonants: fricatives

For /f/ and its voiced counterpart /v/, air escapes through the space between the top teeth and lower lip. For /θ/ and its voiced counterart /ð/, air escapes through the space between the top teeth and the tongue. For /s/ and its voiced counterpart /z/, the tip of the tongue is close to the alveolar ridge, making a narrow space between the tip of the tongue and the bottom of the top teeth. Air escapes through that space. For /∫/ and its voiced counterpart /ᴣ/, the sides of the tongue touch the sides of the upper teeth. The tip of the tongue does not touch anything. The blade of the tongue is concave, making the tongue look like a rain gutter. The lips are close together and protruding. Air comes out through the channel created by the concave part of the tongue. 

English consonants

/ʃ/ is used in ‘Confucian’ and /ʒ/ is used in ‘confusion.’ /h/ is produced through friction in the vocal cords. /h/ is unvoiced, as the vocal cords do not vibrate during the production of this sound. To create the /h/ sound, the deep back of the tongue slightly constricts within the throat. 

Affricates

Affricates are made by combining a stop with a fricative. The mouth is closed at first, as in a stop, then it opens a little bit into position for a fricative. So an affricate is a stop with a slow release. For instance, try to say the word ‘cheese.’ You should notice that your tongue is in the position to make a /t/ sound. But instead of releasing the air entirely quickly, you release it only partially and turn it into a fricative, thus resulting in the sound /tʃ/. Its voiced counterpart is /ʤ/. Try to say the word ‘jeez.’ You begin with the stop /d/, and then release the air slowly to become a /dʒ/. English has only the two affricates: /ʧ/ and /ʤ/. 

English consonants: affricates

Sonorants

The rest of the consonants are sonorants, which is a combination of ‘sonor’ from ‘sonorous’ and ‘ants’ from ‘consonant.’ Sonorants are consonants produced with a relatively open passage for the airflow. Since the air passage is open, there is no turbulence of air. Also, the sounds can be produced continuously. Sonorants are always voiced. These are sonorants: /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/, /r/, /w/ and /j/. Sonorants can be divided into nasals and approximants, depending on where the air escapes. With nasals, air escapes through the nose, and with approximants, through the mouth. The first three, /m, n, ŋ/, are called nasals. The rest, /l, r, w, j/, are called approximants. This name comes from the fact that the sounds are produced by bringing one articulator in the vocal tract close to another without causing audible friction.

Nasals

The first three, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, are called nasals as the air comes through the nose. Nasals are produced with a lowered velum, which allows air to escape freely through the nose. For /m/, the lips block the air, for /n/, the tongue at the alveolar ridge blocks the air, and for /ŋ/, the back of the tongue blocks air at the velum, forcing air to flow through the nasal passage. 

English consonants: nasals

Liquids 

/l/ and /r/ are called liquids since air flow is redirected and sent to different directions before exiting the lips. For /l/, imagine the tongue like a big rock in the middle of a little brook. The water stream is divided into two and moves around the rock. So is the airflow with /l/. For /r/, imagine the tongue like an odd-shaped rock that is under the water surface. The water will move around and over the rock. So is the airflow with /r/ around the tongue. 

English consonants: liquids

Liquids are some of the hardest sounds to pronounce correctly for non-native speakers. One important reason for this is that liquids are actually pronounced differently before and after a vowel in a syllable, but non-native speakers are often unaware of this fact. For /l/, the two different sounds are often called the light L and dark L. For /r/, the two different sounds are called the prevocalic R and vocalic R. We examine these different sounds of the same phoneme briefly. 

Lateral liquids

/l/ is the lateral liquid since the flow of air is redirected around the tongue and toward the sides of the mouth before exiting through the lips. That is, air flows around the sides of the tongue. For this to happen, the tip of the tongue touches the alveolar ridge, and the sides of the tongue are dropped down so that the air can flow around the sides of the tongue. The opening left beside the tongue is wide enough that air flowing through does not become turbulent. 

English has one lateral liquid phoneme (/l/), but it actually has two different sounds: the alveolar lateral approximant /l/ (also called the light L) and the velarized alveolar lateral approximant /l/ (also called the dark L). For the light L, the tongue is brought near the alveolar ridge, forcing the air around the tongue toward the sides (lateral) of the mouth before being allowed to exit. The light L occurs in a syllable initial position; for example: like, lion, light. For the dark L, in addition to the tip of the tongue being brought near the alveolar ridge, the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum. That is, there is an additional arching of the tongue in the velar region. 

English consonants

The dark L occurs in a syllable final position, like pool, world, or milk. When L is pronounced as a dark L, it becomes syllabic, acting as the sound carrier in a syllable. In other words, the dark L has a vowel sound (schwa) embedded in it. 

Retroflex liquids

/r/ is formed with the tip of the tongue curled back toward the roof of the mouth without touching any part of the mouth. The back of the tongue stays low. Since the tip of the tongue has to be curled back, /r/ is often called the retroflex liquid. Due to the tongue shape, the flow of air out of the body is altered. The /r/ sound can also be made by raising the back of the tongue. The center of the back of the tongue is lower and the air travels through this groove to create the sound. This way of making the /r/ sound is called the retracted R.

English pronunciation IPA Chart

 

American English is rhotic. “Rhotic” means the pronunciation of the syllable final R. Since British English is non-rhotic, the syllable final R is dropped. R that comes before a vowel in a syllable (or a syllable initial r) is called prevocalic R, and R that comes after a vowel in a syllable (or a syllable final r) is called vocalic R. The prevocalic R and vocalic R have different sound quality. Just like the situation with the light L and the dark L, the prevocalic R is a pure consonant sound, but the vocalic R has a vowel sound (schwa) embedded in it. The vocalic R is the cause of the r-colored vowel, which we examined in the chapter on vowels. Due to the R dropping of the British English, British English has only prevocalic R.

Glides

/w/ and /j/ are called glides because the air glides over the tongue before exiting the lips. Glides are also called semivowels. To pronounce the /w/ sound, form your lips into a small, tight circle, and let the air out as if you are blowing out a candle. The /w/ sound can be found in words such as ‘woman’ and ‘win.’ The /j/ sound can be found in words such as”jeNNy

’ /j/ is made by placing the tip of the tongue just behind the lower front teeth and raising the middle of the tongue towards the roof of the mouth. The sides of the tongue come in contact with the top of the mouth, but the middle of the tongue does not touch the roof, creating a passageway for air from the lungs through the mouth. 

English consonants: seminvowels/glides

In this section, we classified consonants based on how they are produced. When we learn individual consonant phonemes, we will learn how they are pronounced in detail.