6. Consonants in Contact

A phoneme is one of the basic distinctive units of a language. It possesses and demonstrates all its characteristic features to the full extent. For example the phoneme [k] is characterized as occlusive, noise, plosive, aspirated, backlingual, velar, voiceless, fortis, oral.

Phonemes are realized in speech through sounds which can’t occur in isolation. They always have neighbours and can’t help influencing one another changing each other’s features. Thus in speech we mostly deal with different variants of phonemes, i.e. those which lack some of their features or have modified ones. For example the phoneme [k] in the word fact lacks two important features: plosion and aspiration. It is a plosionless and unaspirated variant of the phoneme [k].

A phoneme has different variants due to:

a) specific ways in which a sound is joined to the following one;

b) the position of a sound in a syllable or a word;

c) assimilation / adaptation.

Some specific ways of sound joining

Loss of Plosion

When two plosives are in contact there’s a complete loss of plosion of the first sound, that is the obstruction is removed and a plosion is heard only after the second consonant.

Plosionless variants of the plosives [p, b, t, d, k, g] are also found before the affricative consonants [C, G] within a word or at the word-junction, e.g. actor, sit down, a black chair.

Nasal Plosion

The nasal plosion takes place at the junction of plosives with the nasal sonorants [m, n]. The articulation of the sonorant starts when the articulation of the plosive consonant is not yet finished. As a result of this the airflow passes through the nasal cavity producing the effect of a nasal plosion.

Nasally exploded variants of plosives are found both within a word and at the word-junction, e.g. help me, garden, ask me.

Lateral Plosion

The lateral plosion takes place at the junction of plosives with the lateral sonorant [l].The plosion is heard during the pronunciation of the sonorant as the airflow passes along the sides of the tongue.

Laterally exploded variants of plosives are found both within a word and at the word-junction, e.g. little, that lesson, middle, clock.

Some Specific Ways of Pronunciation

Loss of Aspiration

The plosives [p, t, k] are aspirated only when they occur at the beginning of a stressed syllable as in pin, tail, come, play. An aspirated consonant is one that is accompanied by a brief [h]-sound.

Aspiration is lost at the beginning of a stressed syllable when the voiceless plosives [p, t, k] are preceded by the sibilant [s]. Thus unaspirated variants of [p, t, k] are used after [s] before a stressed vowel, e.g. sky, step, spy.

Unaspirated variants are naturally used before unstressed vowels and in the word-final position, e.g. car'toon, ripe, to 'write.

The [h]-phoneme in Intervocalic Position

A partially voiced variant of the voiceless [h] is used between vowels, i.e. in intervocalic position within a word or at the word-junction, e.g. behind, I have, a house.