4. According to the position of the soft palate.

According to the position of the soft palate consonants are divided into oral and nasal.

When the soft palate is raised and the air from the lungs gets into the pharynx and then into the mouth cavity, oral consonants are produced: [p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [g], [f], [v], [Ө], [ð], [s], [z], [∫], [ʒ], [h], [t∫], [dʒ], [w], [l], [r], [j].

When the soft palate is lowered and the air on its way out passes through the nasal cavity, nasal consonants are produced: [m], [n], [η].

Classifications of consonants suggested by Soviet phoneticians seem to be more logical, accurate and detailed. They serve the teaching purposes much better than those, suggested by foreign authors.

CONTROVERSY:

British and American phoneticians do not divide consonants first into three most general types of occlusives, constrictives and trills, with futher subdivisions of each type into sonorous and noise consonants. They begin at once with subclasses: (1) plosives/stops; (2) affricates; (3) nasals; (4) laterals; (5) fricatives/spirants; (6) trills/flapped consonants.

D. Jones, H.A. Gleason and A.C. Gimson do not single out the groups of sonorants, but D. Jones gives separate groups of nasals /m, n, ŋ/, the lateral /l/, frictionless continuants (= glides, semi-vowels) /w, r, j/, H.A. Gleason gives separate groups of nasals /m, n, ŋ/, the lateral /l/, semi-vowels /w, r, y/. B. Bloch, G. Trager give separate groups of nasals /m, n, ŋ/, the lateral /l/, trills /r/ (= rolled/trilled consonants).

B. Bloch, G. Trager and A.C. Gimson include in the classifications of consonants a number of allophones.

B. Bloch and G. Trager have different opinions on the nature of English affricates: they deny the existence of affricates as monophonemic entities and state that they are biphonemic sequences. D. Jones states that there are six affricates in the system of English consonants, I. Ward states that there are even eight of them: /t∫, dʒ, ts, dz, tr, dr, tθ, dð/.

Soviet phoneticians consider affricates as units which are articulatorily and acoustically indivisible (this can be proved by instrumental techniques), and morphologically unique: no morpheme boundary can pass within /t∫, dʒ/, yet it can be found in /tθ/, e.g. eight - eighth /eit - eitθ/, and in /dð/, e.g.: bed - beds /bed - bedðz/.

Since only the sounds /t∫, dʒ/ are articulatorily and acoustically indivisible and morphologically unique, they are the only occlusive- constrictive or affricated sounds.

Articulatory and Physiological Classification of English Vowels

NOTE:

The first linguist who tried to describe and classify vowel sounds for all languages was D. Jones. He devised the system of 8 Cardinal Vowels. The basis of this system is physiological. The system for the 8 Cardinal Vowels is:

1 - i, 2 - e, 3 - ε, 4 - a, 5 - α, 6 - o, 7 – o:, 8 - u.

Cardinal Vowel N1 corresponds to the position of the front part of the tongue raised as close to the palate as possible. The gradual lowering of the tongue to the back lowest position gives another point for cardinal vowel N5.

The lowest front position of the tongue gives the point for cardinal N 4. The upper back limit for the tongue position gives the point for cardinal N8. These positions for cardinal vowels N1, 4, 5 and 8 were copied from X-ray photographs. The tongue positions between these points were X-rayed and the equi-distant points for N2, 3, 6, 7 were found.

Acoustically vowels differ due to their tembral coloring, each vowel is characterized by its own formats (= concentrations of energy in certain frequency regions of the spectrogram).

The English vowel phonemes are divided first of all into two large groups: monophthongs (= simple vowels) and diphthongs (= complex vowels). This division is based on the stability of articulation.

The stability of articulation (=coordinated movements of speech organs in the process of speech) is the principle of vowel classification which is not singled out by British and American phoneticians. In fact, it is the principle of the stability of the shape, volume and the size of the mouth resonator.

A monophthong is a pure (unchanging) vowel sound. In its pronunciation the organs of speech do not perceptibly change their position throughout the duration of the vowel. In other words, English monophthongs are pronounced with more or less stable lip, tongue and mouth walls position. They are: /ı, e, æ, α:, ɒ, ɔ:, ʊ, Λ, ə:, ə/.

A diphthong is a complex sound consisting of two vowel elements pronounced so as to form a single syllable. In the pronunciation of a diphthong the organs of speech start in the position of one vowel and glide gradually in the direction of another vowel, whose full formation is generally not accomplished.

The first element of an English diphthong is the nucleus – strong, clear and distinct. The second element is called the glide – which is rather weak.

There are eight diphthongs in English:

• three with a glide towards /ı/ - /eı/, /aı/, /ɔı/;

• two with a glide towards /ʊ/ - /aʊ/, /ǝʊ/;

• three with a glide towards /ə/ - /ıə/, /εə/ or /eǝ/, /ʊə/.

Besides these diphthongs, there are two vowels in English (/i:/ and /u:/) which may have a diphthongal pronunciation: in the articulation of these vowels the organs of speech change their position but very slightly. They are called diphthongized vowels (= diphthongoids).

NOTE:

Diphthongs are defined differently by different authors.

D. Jones defined diphthongs as unisyllabic gliding sounds in the articulation of which the organs of speech start from one position and then glide to another position.

N.S. Trubetskoy states that a diphthong should be a) unisyllabic (the parts of a diphthong cannot belong to two syllables), b) monophonemic with gliding articulation, c) its length should not exceed the length of a single phoneme.

L.R. Zinder adds that phonemically diphthongs are sounds that cannot be divided morphologically. E.g. the Russian /ай, ой/ in чай, стой can be separated: ча-ю, сто-ю.

L.L. Bulanin calls combinations like Russian /ай, ей, ой/ phonetic diphthongs and English inseparable units like /ai, ei/ - phonemic diphthongs.

Depending on which vowel element of the diphthong is stronger, longer and, therefore, more definite in tamber, prominent and syllabic (= forming the nucleus/peak/crest) of the syllable, diphthongs are divided into 1) falling - when the nucleus is stronger than the glide and 2) rising - when the glide is stronger than the nucleus. When both elements are equal the diphthongs are called level.

Thus, according to the vowel-position in whose direction the tongue glides the English falling diphthongs are divided into three groups:

the [ı] – glide diphthongs - /eı, aı, ɔı/,

the [ʊ] – glide diphthongs - /aʊ, ǝʊ/,

the [ə] – glide diphthongs - /ıə, εə, ʊə/.

According to whether the tongue glides upwards or downwards from the nucleus, diphthongs may be divided into: 1) narrowing [eı, aı, ɔı, ǝʊ, aʊ] and 2) widening [ıə, ʊə]. British and American phoneticians call the [ə] – glide diphthongs centering/centring since they consider the neutral vowel to be a central one.

The English monophthongs may be classified according to the following principles: