Glottal fricative /h/

/h/ is quite easy to recognize for most non-native speakers. An exception might be French speakers since the letter H is always silent in French. In Britain, using or not using the /h/ sound can signify class and status (posher speakers vs ‘H’ droppers). But in American English, unless ‘H’ is silent, H is always pronounced. 

Silent H words

The sound /h/ is spelt with an ‘H’ or ‘WH.’ With ‘WH,’ either /w/ or /h/ is pronounced, but not both. When ‘H’ is combined with other letters like TH, SH, CH, PH, GH, and RH, they make entirely different sounds: ‘TH’ makes /θ/ or /ð/; ‘SH’ makes /ʃ/; ‘CH’ makes /tʃ/; ‘PH’ makes /f/ (except for ‘SHEPHERD’ where ‘PH’ makes /p/). ‘GH’ can be either silent or make /f/, /g/ or /p/. H is silent in ‘RH.’ 

These words have silent ‘H’: 

what, which, where, when, why, honor, hour, honest, heir, herb, vehicle, vehement, exhausting, exhilarating 

/h/, no-/h/ minimal pairs

This is the minimal pairs of /h/ and non-/h/

had add

hair air

hall all

harm arm

heart art

heat eat

hedge edge

heal eel

hate eight

high eye

hill ill

hold old

his is

/f/, /h/ minimal pairs

/f/ and /h/ are voiceless fricatives, and can continue the sound. They differ in the way air escapes from the mouth. For the /f/ sound, air escapes between top teeth and bottom lips. For /h/ air escapes from the glottis.

fat hat

fair hair

fall hall

feel heel

fee he

feet heat

fail hail

farm harm

five hive

force horse

fare hare

feed he’d

fell hell

fence hence

few hew

foal whole

foam home

fog hog

furl hurl

phase haze

/h/ dropping in connected speech

Initial /h/ is dropped (not pronounced) from function words in certain situations. Examples of ‘h’-function words are forms of the ‘have’ verb (have, has, had) and pronouns that begin with ‘h’ (he, his, him, her). The situation that allows the ‘h’ dropping is when these words are in the middle of a sentence and unstressed. If they are stressed (e.g., for emphasis or contrast) or if they begin a sentence, the ‘h’ is not dropped. So for instance, the ‘H’ in “He’s ok” or “Have they done it?” is pronounced, but the ‘h’ in “Is he ok?” or “John has done it” is not pronounced. 

Initial /h/ is only dropped when the word is unstressed in the sentence, so in addition to dropping the /h/, the vowel often becomes /ə/, as we learned in the chapter on vowels. The remaining sound is as follows: 

have /əv/; has /əz/

he /i/; his /iz/ or /əz/; him /im/ or /əm/; her /ər/, them /əm/

Once the ‘h’ is dropped, we need to connect the remaining vowel with the consonant sound that comes before it. By connecting them, the two words sound like one word. These are examples where ‘h’ is dropped, 

The ‘h’ pronouns

tell him /telɪm/; tell her /telər/

give him /gɪvɪm/; give her /gɪvər/

was he /wəzɪ/; is he /ɪzɪ/

The ‘have’ verb

John has done it.

She has seen it.

I should have worked: /ʃʊɾəv/ 

I would have done that (/wʊɾəv/)

(The ‘d’ in would become a flap-T. The IPA symbol for the flap T is [ɾ].)

These sentences can be even more shortened through contraction where the vowels of function words are also dropped. 

John’s done it.

She’s seen it.

I’d’ve [aɪɾəv] worked. 

I’d’ve [aɪɾəv] done that. 

In the most rapid speech, common in American English, the final consonant of the function word may also be dropped:

I’d’ve  [aɪda] worked

I’d’ve  [aɪda] done that