Introduction

Several students, while learning a second language, many times express the wish to sound like a native speaker. You might have already thought to yourself:

How many times has this wish resulted in frustration?

Even though the same organs (that is, the ones that compose the respiratory, the phonatory and the articulatory systems) are activated during speech production both in Portuguese and in English, patterns of muscular activities may differ depending on the sounds involved. Let’s consider, for example:

Since this sound does not exist in Portuguese, that is, since the muscular patterns involved in producing such sound differ from the ones Portuguese speakers are used to, Portuguese speakers may resort to more familiar muscular patterns.

This happens when English learners, instead of placing the tongue between the teeth, resort to a more common phoneme such as /s/, and the word think becomes:

The problem, therefore, does not lie in the physiology of pronunciation, but rather in the fact that the set of sounds we acquire may vary. Learning a new language would, this way, mean learning how to use our speech organs in new ways so that the sounds learnt in English could be intelligibly reproduced. Learning how and where sounds are articulated may help students reproduce sounds more clearly and become more articulate speakers.

Do you know how and where sounds are articulated in English?

Manner of articulation, place of articulation and voicing

As you probably remember, sounds within a language are called phonemes, which means that vowels are phonemes and so are consonants. Remember that vowels and consonants are phonemic categories, related to sounds and not letters.

Letters and phonemes do not always coincide as the same letter (or cluster) may refer to different phonemes. Let’s go back to the given example, to the word think! Even though th refers to the phoneme /θ/, in a different word such as they, the phoneme /ð/ is used.

Both phonemes are produced by placing the tongue between the teeth, in other terms, they are both dental consonants. To produce both phonemes, the airstream is not interrupted, meaning they are both fricative consonants.

The only difference resides in the vibration of the vocal cords. Whereas in the phoneme /θ/ (as in think) the vocal cords do not vibrate, to produce the phoneme /ð/ (as in they) the cords need to vibrate. There is thus no difference either in the way the phonemes are articulated or in the articulators involved in producing them. While /ð/ is a voiced phoneme, /θ/ is voiceless.

By comparing both phonemes /θ/ and /ð/, we realize that consonants are categorized based on three factors:

In more academic terms, consonants differ in:

Since speech sounds are basically produced by obstructing or constricting airstream, that is, by means of modifying airstream, those categories relate to how and where the airflow is modified. For instance, when articulators are brought together, e.g., the upper teeth and the lower lip, such as in the phoneme /f/, the air finds its way through a small passage and the hissing sound, which derives from it, can be continued until your lungs run out of air. These are called:

How is, then, the sound produced in the phoneme /f/?

By not blocking the airstream, by allowing the sound to be continuous. Since /f/ is a continuant consonant, it falls under the category of what is called:

The term fricative refers to how the sound is produced but it says nothing about which articulators are activated during sound production. In the production of the phoneme /f/ both the upper teeth (dental) and the lower lip (labio) are mobilized, and that is why it is called labiodental consonant.

How is then the sound produced?

With the upper teeth against the lower lip (labiodental), allowing for a continuous airstream (fricative).

According to where the sound is articulated, fricative consonants are split into smaller categories such as:

Except for the glottal one, each category is composed of a pair of consonants that only differ in voicing (one is voiced and the other voiceless).

Labiodental fricatives

Labiodental consonants are produced when the upper teeth touch the lower lip. Two sounds derive from this encounter: /f/ and /v/. Both consonants are labiodental fricatives.

In the production of the phoneme /v/ the vocal cords vibrate whereas the same does not apply to /f/. In other words, /v/ is voiced and /f/ is voiceless.

Try the following:

Place your upper teeth over your bottom lip and touch your Adam’s apple.

Dental fricatives

The tongue and the teeth produce a gap through which the air escapes. This type of consonant poses a great challenge to most Portuguese speakers since it is inexistent in the Portuguese language. To make students’ lives easier, teachers and even pronunciation guides tend to explain that dental consonants are produced by placing the tongue between the teeth. Actually, the tongue is normally placed inside the teeth and not between the teeth. The tip of the tongue would then touch the inside of the lower teeth and the blade of the tongue the inside of the lower teeth.

To understand how to pronounce this phoneme, do the following: place the front of your tongue against the back of your front teeth. Let the air out as you breathe out. Produce a continuant sound. Once again, these fricatives can be voiced and voiceless consonants.

They are voiceless /θ/ in the following words:

Notice that the phoneme /θ/ can occur in the beginning, middle or end of words.

They are voiced /ð/ in the following words:

So far, we have seen cases in which the lip, the tongue, and the teeth are involved in sound production. However, many other articulators can be activated when speaking a language. The main ones are:

In the following sections you will see fricative consonants that are produced by bringing other articulators together, such as in the word sin.

Alveolar fricatives

When the tip or blade of the tongue is brought closer to the alveolar ridge, the air flows through a deep groove in the tongue, producing a sharp hiss. These consonants are called alveolar due to where the sound is produced: in the alveolar ridge.

The phonemes /s/ and /z/ are the two alveolar fricatives that only differ in the buzzing sound the phoneme /z/ produces. While /s/ is voiceless, /z/ is its voiced counterpart.

While it is true that /s/ in many cases is just a phonemic representation of the letter s, bear in mind that the rule does not apply to all cases. Notice the following words, for example:

Even though different letters and combination of letters are being used in the words, they all refer to the same phoneme, namely, /s/. When the letter c is followed by e, i or y, it is usually pronounced as /s/, like in the words cell, ice, cent and society. Also, the letter x, represented by the combination /ks/, for example:

The only difference between /s/ and /z/ is that your vocal cords vibrate while pronouncing words such as:

The letter s is pronounced as /z/ when between vowels in a stressed syllable, such as in the word because. Also, the letter s in certain plural nouns, when following a vowel or most voiced consonants is pronounced as /z/ as well. For example:

Palato-alveolar fricatives

Before delving a little bit deeper into the sound production of the palato-alveolar fricatives, picture the following scene:

Now let’s think:

As the name shows, this sound production is partly palatal and partly alveolar, since it happens in the area in between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate.

You may realize that the air flows through a passage along the tongue as in the word sip, but your tongue moves backwards to produce de /ʃ/ in ship, making the air passage wider. The air flows through a shallower groove in the tongue than in /s/, which makes the hissing sound graver.

As with most fricatives, the palato-alveolar consonants also have voiced and voiceless counterparts. Whereas /ʃ/ is voiceless, that is, it is produced without any vibration in the vocal cords; /ʒ/ is its voiced counterpart.

The phoneme /ʃ/ has different spellings such: sh, ch, ci, ti, ss. For example:

When pronouncing these words just make sure not to let your tongue touch either your teeth or the gum ridge.

The phoneme /ʒ/ has similarly different spellings. These include: si, su, gi, ge as in the words:

So far, the fricatives described have been produced by combining articulators present in the mouth (tongue, lip, palate, alveolar ridge) and have been described in contrast with their counterparts (e.g., voiced or voiceless). The remaining fricative, nonetheless, has no voiced counterpart and has, additionally, a place of articulation that cannot be placed in the mouth.

Glottal fricative

By now you may have become a bit more familiarized with how the articulators in the mouth modify the airstream to produce sounds. And you may assume that, aside from the vibration of the vocal cords, these articulators (present in the mouth) play a major role in modifying airstream by constricting the airflow.

However, as the name shows, a glottal consonant is neither produced in the palate nor in the alveolar ridge; the airflow is modified instead in the glottis (the space between the vocal cords).

/h/ is produced by narrowing the space between the vocal folds. The air flows through a narrower passage between the vocal folds, producing, then, a friction noise.

The /h/ is found in the middle as well as at the end of words. Example:

Just make sure you pronounce the /h/ phoneme, otherwise you may produce a completely different word and your message may be compromised. If /h/ is not pronounced, you may, for instance, say:

Fricative consonants are categorized based on their places of articulation. According to the articulators involved in making the stricture, fricatives may be labiodental, dental, alveolar, palato-alveolar and glottal consonants. Apart from the glottal fricative, all the other consonants were studied in pairs: as voiced and voiceless counterparts.

The following chart summarizes what was discussed in the section:

Introduction

Have you noticed that certain consonantal sounds seem to end up in an explosion? A puff of air is released, after a moment of blockage, and a small explosion seems to happen in your mouth.

Try saying the following sentence:

Now pay attention to how you articulate the sounds in the words cat and house.

Keep those questions in mind. In the next topics we will be discussing a different manner of articulation, one in which the airstream is blocked, causing an explosion to happen. We will also describe which articulators are brought together to completely block the airstream in order to produce certain sounds.

Plosive Consonants

Let’s go back to the word cat.

What have you noticed about the two phonemes /k/ and /t/?

If you try to continuously make these sounds until your lungs run out of air, you will realize that you will not be able to. To make the same sound again you will have to obstruct the airstream, to completely block the air from flowing. They are, therefore, non-continuants, as their sounds cannot be prolonged. And the reason why lies in the way (manner) they are articulated.

Both consonants /k/ and /t/ depend on a three-step mechanism to be pronounced:

According to its manner of articulation, a consonant is fricative or plosive:

As we will see, the six plosive consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, and /g/ will differ in places of articulation and voicing. So, in the following sections we will be asking the questions:

Similarly to what happens to the fricative consonants, the plosives also come in pairs. Each place of articulation produces a pair of consonants that only differ in voicing. In other words, the pairs of bilabial, alveolar, and velar plosives entail voiceless and voiced counterparts.

Bilabial plosives

Let’s go back to the word cat!

As you may have realized, by changing the place of articulation, by using both lips to form the stricture, the word which was initially cat became the word bat. A change in the place of articulation and the presence of vibration created a totally new phoneme that changed the meaning of the word.

Do you see why phonetics is important?

Simply altering where a phoneme is articulated may cause great changes in meaning. Both cat and bat are words composed of plosives.

The phoneme /b/, however, is formed by a closure made at the lips. And that is why it is called a bilabial (two lips) consonant.

The /b/ is a simple consonant to pronounce. Nonetheless, attention to the vibration of the vocal cords is necessary. Otherwise you may be pronouncing /p/ instead.

Both phonemes may occur in the beginning, the middle or the end of the words. When /b/ comes at the end, though, many speakers may forget to make the vocal cords vibrate and words such as:

Moreover, /b/ is not always pronounced and in some words, it is silent (this happens when b comes after m in the same syllable), like:

The /p/ seems to pose little difficulties for many students learning English as well. However, aside from voicing, another element should be introduced in the study of the plosives. After the release phase, when there is the plosive burst as described before, in the case of /p/ we should consider another phase:

Initial voiceless plosives like the phoneme /p/ are aspirated, whereas /b/, as a voiced plosive, is unaspirated.

Aspiration is perceptible when there is a delay between the plosive burst and the beginning of voicing, which is often equated with a puff of air. Aspiration only occurs, however, when /p/ is initial in a stressed syllable, for example:

When /p/ follows /s/ it is, though, not aspirated, like in the word:

We may say then that /p/ is more explosive in English than in most languages and the lack of aspiration in an initial /p/ may cause misunderstandings. You may end up saying:

To make sure aspiration is taking place, try the following test:

Did the tissue move?

Did you feel a puff of air in your hand?

If your answer was yes, then you are doing it right!

Alveolar plosives

So far, we have seen that the word cat has two plosive consonants. But we haven’t discussed which articulators are involved in producing both /k/ and /t/ yet. Let’s start with the /t/ phoneme.

Alveolar plosives are formed when a closure is made with the tongue tip against the alveolar ridge (that is, the hard, bony ridge behind the teeth).

Try saying the sentence:

You may have noticed that both Ted and sad are formed in the same area (the alveolar ridge). To produce both sounds the tip/blade of the tongue is brought closer to the alveolar ridge.

Both /s/ and /t/ are alveolar consonants; both are then formed in the alveolar ridge. While one results from the complete closure of the air passage, the other derives from the constriction of the airflow.

Because /t/ is a voiceless plosive consonant, like /p/ discussed before, it will also be aspirated whenever it is an initial phoneme in a stressed syllable. If pronounced with no aspiration it may resemble its voiced counterpart, that is, /d/. /t/ is aspirated in words such as:

When, however, it occurs between vowels and follows a stressed syllable it is not aspirated, for example:

While it is true that the letter t is usually pronounced /t/, it is not the only letter or combination of letters that is pronounced as such. Think of the past tense of the verb stop, that is, the word stopped.

Have you noticed that the -ed ending is pronounced /t/?

This happens whenever -ed follows a voiceless consonant, for example:

Pay special attention to the /d/ at the end of words, such as bed or card, for example, as the lack of vibration may give the listener the impression that you are saying bet and cart instead.

Another pronunciation problem may result from placing your tongue tip at the wrong place. Your tongue tip should touch your alveolar ridge and not the back of your teeth (inside the teeth) or between your teeth, otherwise:

Velar plosives

Simply put, the word velar identifies a place of articulation, that is, the velum or soft palate. To determine where the soft palate is, do the following:

The soft palate, however, has other functions as well, and in our case, it functions as the place of articulation for our remaining plosives: /k/ and /g/.

Let’s go back again to our initial example: the word cat!

So far, we have determined that /t/ is an alveolar plosive, meaning that the closure is made with the tongue tip against the alveolar ridge.

By pronouncing the word cat, you may notice that the back of your tongue touches the soft palate (that spot that may trigger the “gag reflex”) to produce the phoneme /k/. Velar plosives are, then, formed when the back of the tongue and the soft palate make a closure, preventing the air from escaping.

To understand the movement, you may want to try the following:

/k/ is a very explosive phoneme in English and whenever it is an initial phoneme in a stressed syllable, such as in cat, it should be said with strong aspiration and a puff of air.

Just remember that the letter k does not always coincide with the phoneme /k/. In words such as knit and know, the letter k is silent, which is usually the case when k precedes the letter n. Moreover, different spellings refer to the phoneme /k/: k being the most frequent one, and ch, a less frequent spelling. The words mechanics, chrome, Christmas exemplify the former. The letter c, whenever it precedes a, o or u, is also pronounced as /k/, as in the words:

When the velar closure produces vibration of the vocal cords and less aspiration, the sound /g/ is being pronounced. Therefore, make sure your vocal cords are vibrating, especially at the end of the words, to avoid misunderstandings; otherwise you may end up saying:

While it is true that the letter g is usually pronounced as /g/, words containing the letter x may also be pronounced as a combination of /g/ and /z/, such as the word:

We have studied three pairs of plosives that differ in terms of places of articulation. When it comes to the articulators involved, plosives in English can be alveolar, velar or bilabial consonants.

In the study of the plosives, aside from voicing, that is, categorizing the consonants in terms of absence of presence of vibration; another element was added, namely: aspiration. Even though the vibration of the vocal cords may play a major role in determining different consonants, in the case of the plosives, aspiration becomes a much more relevant aspect, especially to a native ear.

Voiceless consonants are aspirated whenever they are the initial consonants in a stressed syllable. That means that while /t/ is:

The following chart summarizes what was discussed in this section:

Airflow and constriction

Speech production involves modifying the airstream. Different phonemes are produced by different degrees of constriction. While the plosive burst is produced by a complete closure at some point in the vocal tract, fricatives such as /f/ and /v/ result from a friction sound. Fricatives, therefore, are produced when the degree of constriction is such that a friction noise is heard.

Both fricatives and plosives are categorized under the umbrella term:

Although all obstruents are consonants, not all consonants are obstruents, as you may see in the following sections. There are three types of obstruents in English, namely:

In this section we will be studying the remaining obstruent as well as consonants produced with continuous and non-turbulent airflow.

Affricates

The first phoneme in the word tip is a plosive consonant, meaning that we bring the tip/blade of the tongue close to the alveolar ridge, and the airflow is momentarily blocked. By releasing the air, due to the pressure difference, we can hear an explosive sound called plosive burst.

Now let’s compare two words that, apart from their initial phonemes, are quite similar!

The words are:

The initial phoneme in the word tip is a plosive consonant, but what can we say about the initial phoneme in chip?

Notice that to pronounce chip, we must completely obstruct the air from flowing and produce a friction sound. The resultant phoneme seems to be a combination of a plosive and a fricative.

The phoneme /tʃ/ is a combination of the:

The phoneme /tʃ/, in the word chip, is an affricate. There are two affricates in English, formed at the same place of articulation: they are both palato-alveolar affricates. /tʃ/ is produced without vibration of the vocal cords, that is, it is a voiceless consonant.

Since this phoneme involves a plosive/fricative combination, attention should be paid to its initial closure, otherwise the phoneme /ʃ/ may be pronounced instead. If you don’t press the tongue tip against the gum ridge behind your upper teeth, you will say:

The phoneme may be found in the beginning, middle, and end of words. The affricate may have the following spellings: ch, tu, tch and less frequently t and ti.

Its voiced counterpart also derives from a complete closure followed by a fricative release. The phoneme /dʒ/ is the one found in words such as:

If you forget to press your tongue against the upper gum ridge, you will say:

Alternatively, if your vocal cords do not vibrate:

/dʒ/ may be spelled as: j, g, and dg.

The letters di and du may be pronounced as /dʒ/ as well as in words such as:

The phoneme is found in the beginning, middle and end of words.

Approximants

The degree of constriction may vary depending on the consonants involved:

There is another possibility, though, the least radical one; one in which articulators are brought together but the stricture formed is wide enough not to give rise to friction:

Approximants, together with the vowels, fall under the category of:

There are four approximants in English, and they are split into two categories:

But what are liquid consonants anyway?

Liquids

Liquid consonants are formed when the tongue approaches a place of articulation in the mouth. This approximation, however, does not hinder the airflow by causing an obstruction so the air can escape through the mouth without any turbulence. The position and movement of the tongue directs the airflow. Liquid consonants are approximants since we bring the articulators into close contact, but we hear no friction. They may also be classed as lateral and central approximants.

Let’s think of two similar words:

When you say the first one, you notice that the tip of your tongue is raised and touches the upper teeth or the roof of the mouth (as it does for the phonemes /t/ and /d/). You also notice that this approximation does not involve a closure in the vocal tract and the air can flow toward the sides of the mouth.

/l/ is a lateral approximant. It is also an alveolar consonant, as there is a central closure with the alveolar ridge. The term lateral refers to how the air escapes (laterally) and the word alveolar refers to its place of articulation. In terms of its manner of articulation, /l/ may be classed as a lateral approximant. Notice that the airstream is blocked centrally, but lateral escape is allowed.

When you say this word, you may realize that your tongue is also raised to produce the /r/ phoneme. The tip of the tongue approaches the same area it does for /t/ and /d/, but it never really touches this area. It is, in fact, curled upward toward the roof of the mouth.

This curling process usually makes the tip of the tongue move to a position further back in the mouth than that for /t/ and /d/. That’s probably why there seems to be some confusion about the phoneme’s place of articulation.

As you can see, liquid consonants, /l/ and /r/, entail a not-so-narrow constriction in the vocal tract, meaning that there is no friction or blockage. That’s why, together with the glides, they are grouped as approximants.

Alveolar liquid

One simple way of describing the pronunciation of /l/ is to say that the tongue tip is pressed against the gum ridge behind the upper front teeth. The air escapes through the sides of the tongue and the vocal cords vibrate. The following picture illustrates this sound production:

What this simple description fails to specify is the position of the body of the tongue. There are two possible positions that characterize two distinct pronunciations.

Palatal liquid

The English language is split into two types of accents:

In non-rhotic accents, the letter r is not pronounced and the word sounds as follows:

To produce the /r/ phoneme the tongue tip is curled upward toward the roof of the mouth:

If you touch the roof of your mouth with your tongue, you will produce /l/ instead of /r/. Just make sure your tongue approaches the hard palate, but never touches it. Also, /r/ is a voiced consonant, and your vocal cords should vibrate while you make this phoneme. The production of /r/, differently from what happens to /l/, involves lip movement. The lips are rounded.

A different sound, however, is heard when the letter is at the beginning of a syllable and comes after p, t or k. For example:

In this case, the phoneme is voiceless and a bit fricative.

In the other cases, both liquid consonants are voiced, and both also involve the tongue approaching a place of articulation in the mouth, be it the alveolar ridge or the hard palate.

Nasals

Approximants produce a frictionless sound since the stricture, formed by bringing articulators into closer contact, is wide enough not to cause any friction. Nasal consonants are also frictionless sounds, but these phonemes are produced differently.

Even though nasals are sonorants, like approximants and vowels, their production involve a closure in the vocal tract. Unlike the plosives, though, the air is not held behind the closure but allowed to escape through the nasal cavity.

There are three nasals:

Alveolar nasal

To produce this phoneme, there is a complete closure between the blade of the tongue and the alveolar ridge. The air, then, escapes through the nasal cavity. The alveolar nasal is the initial phoneme in the word:

Just make sure you press your tongue tip against the gum ridge behind your upper front teeth. The airstream is continuous through the nose and your vocal cords vibrate as /n/ is a voiced consonant.

The letter n is usually pronounced. The exception to the rule is when it is preceded by m. When n follows m, it is not pronounced, it is silent.

Bilabial nasal

Nasal consonants, especially when they come at the end of words, are often confused. If /n/ entails a closure between the tongue and the alveolar ridge, /m/, being a bilabial nasal, entails the lips coming together. There is, then, a complete closure between the lips and the air escapes through the nasal cavity. Once again, just make sure your vocal cords vibrate!

Remember the phoneme’s place of articulation to avoid possible misunderstandings. If you form a closure between the alveolar ridge and the tongue, instead of closing your lips, you will say:

Velar nasal

If you say the word sing, you will realize that the closure is formed at a different point in the vocal tract. The back of the tongue and the velum form a complete closure and the air flows through the nasal cavity. This phoneme may pose some problems as students may be unfamiliar with it and try to resort to a more common sound, namely, /n/. Just remember to raise the back of your tongue, not the tip.

The consonant /ŋ/ is only found in the middle and end of words. The letters ng and ngue, whenever they come at the end of words, are pronounced as /ŋ/.

The letter n, when it precedes g or k, is usually pronounced as /ŋ/. This is the case in words such as:

We have studied so far different types of sonorants and obstruents. The obstruents are formed when there is an obstruction to the airflow. There are three types of obstruents: plosives, fricatives and affricates. The remaining phonemes are called sonorants, which are formed when the airstream can flow without any audible friction. Vowels, approximants and nasals are sonorants.

Vowels X Consonants

Establishing criteria to distinguish vowels from consonants is not as simple as expected. Even though vowels and consonants are concepts used on a daily basis by the majority of the population around the world, pinpointing their differences can be a bit tricky in English.

What’s more, combinations of consonants as well may act as vowels in certain words. It means that consonants may take a vowel-like quality depending on the context in which they occur. In this section we will be discussing consonants that act as vowels, that exhibit vowel-like characteristics. We will also study the contexts in which they occur.

Consonants and vowels

The last time you went to the doctor she or he probably asked you to say:

There is a reason why this sound seems to be a favorite among medical professionals. When you produce this sound (ahh) the air flows through an unobstructed passage from the larynx to the lips. The doctor, then, can examine you better since this sound production provides him or her with an unobstructed view.

It wouldn’t be the same if you were asked to say /k/ or /d/ instead.

So much so that, when it comes to vowel production, places and manner of articulation become irrelevant. All vowels are approximants since they involve open approximations. For vowels, the tongue shape and its movement, as well as the movement of the lips are much more relevant.

However, this simple distinction fails to account for some phonemes such as:

The obstruction to the airflow in these phonemes resembles what happens in vowel production. /w/ and /j/ may adapt to the adjacent vowel. The same does not apply to vowels, though (as they typically do not adapt to adjacent consonants).

Glides

Glides, together with the phoneme /r/, are grouped under the central approximant category. That means that they are formed by a stricture of open approximation and the stricture is wide enough not to cause any turbulence to the airflow. What’s more, the air escapes centrally, without any audible friction.

Lip shape is important to produce vowels, do you remember?

Phonetically, /w/ is like a vowel since it is place of articulation is basically the same as for /u/. It does not function as a vowel, though.

Compare the word wet with other similar one-syllable words, such as:

You will notice that all these words differ in one phoneme: the initial one. /g/, /v/, /p/, and /l/ are inarguably consonants, meaning that /w/ also occupies the place of a consonant. It occurs before a vowel phoneme, which is a consonant distribution. Moreover, the use of the indefinite article may also hint /w/ is a consonant.

Now let’s think about a noun phrase to exemplify!

If we want to say that a car is wet in a simple noun phrase, we will sum it up as follows:

Notice that before /w/ an "a" is used, meaning that it sounds like a consonant.

Some grammar books prefer the term semi-vowel, a phoneme that is articulated like a vowel but classed as a consonant.

You may refer to /w/ as being a central approximant, a semi-vowel, and even as:

Labiovelar glide

/w/ is considered to be a doubly articulated sound. It involves an open approximation at the lips and the tongue back at the velum and that is why it is often called a labiovelar approximant. This labiovelar approximant shares its articulatory characteristics with the vowel /u/, as mentioned before:

The labiovelar approximant is considered to be a very short version of /u/.

This consonant sound occurs at the beginning and middle of words. It does not occur at the end of words in English, though. At the end of words, it is usually silent, as in words like:

The letter w is always pronounced as /w/ in prevocalic position, for instance, in words such as:

And a less frequent spelling for the phoneme are the letters o and u, in words such as:

Some English speakers, whenever they say words spelled with wh-, like what or where, use aspiration and sound, resembling what happens to the phoneme /h/. The resultant phoneme is a combination of /h/ and /w/ and sounds like /hw/. Both pronunciations (/hw/ and /w/) are acceptable, though. Let’s hear:

Palatal glide

If instead of the word wet, you say the word yet, you will notice that the latter resembles the articulatory production of another vowel /i/.

The consonant /j/ is usually spelled as the letter y, in words such as:

Some words containing the letter u may also refer to the palatal glide, in words such as:

Liquids and glides are both approximants, their difference resides, however, in the fact that:

Syllabic consonants

As you may remember, a syllable, phonetically speaking, consists of a center that has no or minimal obstruction to the airflow. Before and after the center there is more obstruction, though.

In other terms, a syllable consists of a nucleus that is usually a vowel. Before and after the nucleus there are other segments, which are typically consonants. If there is no vowel, certain consonants may function as the nucleus, filling the nucleus slot in the syllable. These are called syllabic consonants. Nasals and liquids can occur as syllabic consonants. Syllabic consonants are longer and more prominent than usual.

What makes certain sounds candidates for the syllable nucleus slot?

It is easy to notice that these consonants depend acoustically on noise elements to be produced. That is not the case with vowels, since they are approximants:

The schwa sound

The schwa sound is one of the most frequent vowels sounds in English. It is associated with weak, unstressed syllables and, differently from other vowels, is not articulated with much energy.

Compare the words:

You will realize that the letter a has two distinct pronunciations.

As you can notice, /ə/ is the symbol for the schwa sound.

Any vowel letter may be pronounced as a schwa sound, as long as it is unstressed. The schwa vowel is a very short, quick sound, pronounced in a relaxed way with barely any lip movement.

Syllabic consonants are not exclusive to certain varieties of English and may, then, occur in many of them. They are, though, more perceptible as the rate of the speech increases. Let’s think of a simple word, like:

The second syllable, the unstressed one, may have a syllabic nasal, depending on how the speaker pronounces it. If the schwa sound /ə/ is lost during speech production, /n/ may fill the nucleus slot. The following transcription shows the process:

Syllabic nasals

The most frequently found syllabic nasal is the syllabic n. It is most common after alveolar plosives and fricatives, for instance, in words such as:

Since the second syllable is unstressed, the vowel before the nasal sound is not pronounced and n functions as the nucleus of the syllable. After certain phonemes, however, syllabic n does not occur.

That is the case of the following phonemes: /l/, /tʃ/, and /dʒ/. The schwa sound is not lost, and n is not syllabic. In words such as:

After bilabial consonants, both /n/ and syllabic n are possible, in words such as:

The same happens after velar consonants, both pronunciations are possible, in words such as:

After /f/ and /v/, syllabic n is also common, as:

In words such as button, syllabic n occurs as a product of the join between the plosive and the nasal parts of the word. The word has an alveolar plosive and an alveolar nasal. There is, then, a complete closure formed by the tongue against the alveolar ridge. There is, this way, no possibility for the unobstructed airflow needed for a vowel.

Syllabic m occurs in similar environments, in words such as:

As discussed above, after velar consonants syllabic n may occur. However, there is another possibility:

The occurrence of a velar plosive (/k/) close to a nasal (/n/) may lead to the nasal assimilating a characteristic of the plosive.

Instead of producing a syllabic n, another phoneme may occur: syllabic ŋ. The same can happen in a word such as:

Syllabic liquids

That means that the schwa sound in the second syllable, which is unstressed, may be lost. When this happens, we have a syllabic l instead of /l/. Other examples of syllabic l are the words:

In rhotic accents syllabic r is also common. In the word particular, for instance, the last /r/ could be syllabic.

Notice that in non-rhotic accents, however, some British varieties, for instance, since the letter r is not pronounced after vowels, the process does not occur.

To sum up, even though vowels typically occupy the nucleus slot in a syllable, whenever they are absent, a consonant may function as the nucleus. Given the sonority scale, approximants and nasals are fitter to occupy that slot.

Nasals and liquids, therefore, may be syllabic, whenever they occur in an unstressed syllable without vowels.

The neutral vowel, the schwa sound, is lost, and a syllabic consonant is, then, heard. In many cases, more than one pronunciation is acceptable: the syllabic and the non-syllabic consonants. Nasals may suffer assimilation and a syllabic velar, or a syllabic bilabial may be heard instead. The occurrence of syllabic r is less frequent in non-rhotic accents.

Syllabic consonants may also be combined. We may find words in which more than one syllabic consonant is possible.

Let’s think of the word national, for example!

Syllabic n and syllabic l are adjacent in the word and its phonemic transcription may read as follows: /næʃn̩l̩/.

Peter Roach (2004) also provides more examples for this phenomenon:

To perceive the use of the syllabic consonant or its non-syllabic counterpart may not be so easy in a conversation, however. This tendency, thus, may be harder to pinpoint in real life than its phonetic study may imply.

We have studied consonants that do not thoroughly abide by what is expected from a consonant. Glides, for instance, function phonetically as vowels since their articulatory production resembles that of two vowels: /u/ and /i/.

/w/ and /j/ are also called semi-vowels. Liquids and nasals, given their sonority, may function as the nucleus of a syllable. Even though the nucleus is typically a vowel, these consonants may occupy the nucleus slot when a vowel is absent.