1. The phonemic status of a sound

In phonology the basic method of establishing the phonemic status of a sound is the method of minimal pairs. The method consists in finding at least one pair of words which are different in respect of that sound: pit – bit. When two words are identical except for one sound they are said to from a minimal pair. The minimal pair may be two words or two grammatical forms: man – men, stick – sticks.

If we apply the method to the system of consonants then the first question we should ask is: Which features make the two consonants in each minimal pair different?

Sounds are grouped into classes according to the features which are distinctive (relevant, phonemic). In each minimal pair the opposition is based either on:

• One distinctive feature (single opposition): pit – bit

• two features (double opposition): till – bill

• more than two features (multiple): fill - bill

II. English consonants.

For English consonants distinctive features are the following:

• place of articulation: labial, labio-dental, dental, alveolar, etc.

• type of obstruction and manner of noise production: plosive, fricative, affricate

• presence or absence of voice: voiced, voiceless

• position of the soft palate: oral and nasal.

On the articulatory level every consonantal sound may be determined by 2 main factors:

• the way it is articulated

• where it is produced (mouth or pharynx)

There are several ways in which articulation may be accomplished: the articulators may close off the oral tract for an instant or a relatively long period for a stop; they may narrow the space considerably and cause turbulent noise fro a fricative; or they may simply modify the shape of the tract by approaching each other for an approximant.

To sum it up we may say that consonants are classified in terms of the following factors:

• State of the vocal cords – voiced or voiceless

• Position of the soft palate – nasal or oral

• Place of articulation – labial, alveolar, coronal, glottal

• Manner of the production of the noise – stops, fricatives, approximants (half-vowels) /w, r, j, l, h/.

In order to work out a classification for such a complex unit as a sound of speech, it is necessary to specify, to find out those qualities of a sound that should be relevant to the phenomenon under consideration. So the attempts to classify the sounds should have theoretical basis from one side and from the other one should remember that it should be formed in such a way to be used in the process of teaching the language. So this led to some argument (different approaches) between the linguists.

Viacheslav Alexandrovich Vasilyev (Torsuev and Trakhterov) are sure that primary importance should be given to the type of obstruction and manner of noise production. On this basis they distinguish two main groups of consonants:

• occlusive (in the production of which organs of speech from a complete obstruction) – p, b, t, d, k, g

• constrictive (in the articulation of them organs of speech form incomplete obstruction) – s, z, f, v, w, ∫, ж’

Each of these 2 classes is subdivided into noise consonants and sonorants (taking into account what is prevailing in the articulation of them - noise or voice). Noise consonants in their turn are subdivided into plosives (or stops) and affricates. Sonorants are divided into medial and lateral.

Another group of phoneticians (Sokolova, Tihonova, Gintovt and others) presents another point of view. They consider the degree of noise production to be one and the only principle according to which all the consonants should be classified. In accordance with this principal al the consonants should be subdivided into 2 main classes:

• noise consonants

• sonorants

The class of sonorants should be given special attention (once again now, we dealt with the issue last time) because the status of these sounds, their place in the system has always been a disputable question to all the phoneticians. Sonorants are the sounds that differ greatly from all other consonants. Why? The reason is simple.

In the articulation of these sounds organs of speech form an obstruction but it is not narrow enough, or to be more exact it is too wide to produce noise. The air escapes rather freely, that is why we hear not noise but tone. This fact or peculiarity makes sonorants sound more like vowels than consonants. Taking this into account some English phoneticians (Gimson, Jones, Glisson) determine sonorants, such as {r,j,w} as semi-vowels. On the acoustic level sonorants are opposed to consonants by their clear formant structure and rather high level of energy. On the other hand functional aspect of these sounds shows that they should be included into the system of consonants regarding their position in the syllable. Russian phoneticians came to an agreement that sonorants are consonants from articulatory and phonological point of view.

Another major point of phonological character that is worth discussing is the problem of affricates the question of their phonological status and of their amount, i.e. how many affricates do exist in English. The affricate is the sound n the articulation of which

Here, all the phoneticians deal with two main questions:

- whether [t∫] and [dз] are monophonemic or biphonemic units as well as tr, dr, dz, etc.

- and if these combinations are monophonemic then how many combinations of this kind do exist in English.

I do believe that you won’t be surprised when you hear that there is no definite answer to this question and there are a lot of theories and points of view on the problem.

Linguists of the Soviet and now Russian school do believe that in the system of English consonants there exist two affricates [t∫] and [dз]. Daniel Jones, a famous English phonetician, defines 6 affricates: [t∫ - dз, ts – dz, tr - dr]. Gimson adds to the Jones group 2 more – [tǾ and d∂]. And strange as it may seem – Mark Yakovlevich Blokh and G.Trager deny the existence of affricates in English and consider them to be biphonemic units.

From the facts mentioned above arouses the question: how is it possible to determine whether the units are biphonemic or monophonemic. For this purpose you should follow the rules worked out by Trubetskoy:

The combination of two sounds is monophonemic if:

• its elements belong to 1 syllable

• it has articulatory unity, i.e. their elements are pronounced with one articulatory force

• its length is not longer than the length of its elements, taken together.

If we follow these rules, then it gets clear that [t∫] and [dз] are affricates and monophonemic, while tr and dr are biphonemic combinations, though Gimson mentions their articulatory unity.

If we apply the method of minimal pairs to the system of English consonants, we will get 24 consonant phonemes, 6 of which are in limited distribution or of low frequency. Thus /h, w, j, r/ may be used at the beginning of the word or a syllable while/ŋ, ж/ in the middle or at the end of the word.

Consonants in context.

It should be mentioned that an ideal definition does not always fit a consonant produced in a certain phonetic environment. Sounds in the flow of speech may influence each other and undergo certain changes. In other words consonants may undergo the process of assimilation, elision, accommodation. Here we also will deal with the problem of voicing and devoicing and the problem of palatalization.

We will start with the last two.

I think that the easiest one is palatalization. Here we should draw a parallel between Russian and English languages, the latter being rich in palatalized consonants – we call them soft consonants. A consonant is said to be palatalized when the tongue is raised towards the palate. Palatalization may be observed within a restricted number of English consonants before front vowels, such as a clear [l], but the palatalized consonants do not create a phonemic contrast. What is meant here may become clear form the following examples: little, label, lull (the first l is palatalized while the second is not. But if you do palatalize the second it won’t lead to any change in the meaning but only to some French or Irish accent. But in Russian palatalized and non-palatalized consonants are different phonemes, because they distinguish meanings пыл – пил, мыл- мил, мол – моль, etc.

Thus palatalization is phonemic in Russian and allophonic in English.

One more aspect mentioned above is the devoicing of the consonants. It should be mentioned here that English voiced consonants lose voice distinctions in the word initial position and partially in the word final position. Russian voiced consonants become fully devoiced in the word-final position. In general there is no complete devoicing in English.

The next thing I would like to touch upon is the process of accommodation. We were speaking about the influence of a consonant onto a consonant. But we can’t but mention the influence of a vowel into a consonant, which is called accommodation.

Accommodation or adaptation is the process of mutual influence of vowel and consonants on each other.

In the process of accommodation the accommodated sound doesn’t change its main phonemic features but is pronounced as a variant of the same phoneme slightly modified under the influence of a neighboring sound.

In English there are three main type of accommodation.

1. an unrounded variant of a consonant is replaced by its rounded variant under the influence of a neighboring vowel sound. Compare: [ti:], [les], [nΛn] and [tu:], [lu:s], [nu:n]

2. a back vowel is replaced by its back-advanced variant under the influence of [j]. Compare: [bu:ti] and [bju:ti], [mu:n] and [mju:zik]

3. a vowel phoneme is replaced by its slightly more open variant if it is followed by a dark [l]. Thus a vowel sound in the words bell and tell is more open than in the words bed and ten.

So here we are, reached the process of assimilation. During the process of assimilation he consonant that undergoes the changes is called the assimilated; the consonant that influences the sound is called the assimilating.

Assimilation may affect all the features of articulation of a consonant or only some of them. Thus we may speak about the assimilation:

• affecting the point of articulation (alveolar sounds are replaced by their dental variants.

• Affecting active organs of speech and point of articulation (when the sound [n] is replaced by [ŋ], or when bilabial variant of [m] is replaced by its labio-dental variant if followed by [f/v]

• Affecting the manor of a noise production ( when [t] and [v] occur before [m] they assimilate with the latter: gim mi, lem mi)

• Affecting the work of vocal cords (a voiceless consonant may be replaced by a voiced one, like in the word [gu:zberi] and vice versa like in the combination uju:st tu (used to)

• Affecting the lip position (when [k], [g], [t],[s] become a little rounded under the influence of w – [twais], [kwik], etc)

• Affecting the position of a soft palate (the sound [n] is replaced by [ŋ].

Assimilation maybe of three degrees: complete, partial and intermediate.

complete	Partial	intermediate
The articulation of the assimilated consonant coincides completely with the assimilating: 1. horse + shoe = horseshoe ho:s + ∫u = ho:∫∫u does + she = dΛ∫∫i dΛz ∫i:	Assimilated consonant retains its main phonemic features and becomes only partly similar in some feature of articulation with the assimilating: 1. alveolar sounds turn into dental before ∂,θ: don’t think, a little thicker this thought, that thing 2. voiced [w, l, r] become partly devoiced if they are preceded by [t or p] twais, pli:z, trai 3. sounds become a little rounded if they are followed by [w] twais, dweliŋ, sw٤ə, etc.	The assimilated sound changes completely but doesn’t coincide with the assimilating: 1. [s] is replaced by [z] under the influence of [b]: gu:z + beri = guzberi 2. [n] is replaced by [ŋ] if it si followed by [k]or [g] baŋk, koŋgres 3. in rapid colloquial speech [s], [z], [t] and [d] is replaced by [з] and [∫] if followed by [j]: how’s your father – hauз jo: fa:∂ə can’t you do it – ka:nt∫ə 'du: it

Assimilation may be of three directions: progressive, regressive and reciprocal or double.

In progressive assimilation the assimilated consonant is influenced by the preceding consonant, which may be represented as A → B, where A is the assimilating sound and B is assimilated.

In regressive assimilation the preceding consonant is influenced by the one following it (A ← B)

In reciprocal or double assimilation two adjacent consonants influence each other (A↔B).

If the present-day pronunciation of a word is the result of the assimilation that took place at an earlier stage of the developing of a language then we deal with the historical assimilation. The examples to it are nowadays words, such as nature (from natjur), question (from kwestjon) and others.

In the compounds like horseshoe, gooseberry, combinations as does she and used to we observe a contextual assimilation. In the case of contextual assimilation a word has a pronunciation different from that which it has in isolation.

Other features of English consonants which are due to the phonetic context are:

• Alveolar consonants /t, d, s, z, n, l/ are pronounced as dentals before dental [Ө] and [ð]: in the, at the, what’s that

• Alveolar [t] turns into a glottal stop before a nasal velar /n/: button [bΛ?n]

• Nasals /m, n/ and approximant /l/ become syllabic when after a consonant: rІtn, rІðm, mІdl

• Stops are unexploded when they precede another stop: add two

• Alveolar consonants are reduced or omitted between two consonants: mos(t) people, I expec(t) so