Consonants Flashcards
What is a consonant?
A speech sound made by partially or totally blocking the flow of air through the vocal tract during speech production.
How many consonants are there in General American English (GAE)?
24 consonant sounds.
What is the order of the naming classification for consonants?
Voicing, placement, manner.
Example: unvoiced alveolar fricative.
What is voicing?
It is the presence or absence of vocal fold vibration during production of a speech sound.
What is meant by the ‘manner’ of articulation?
It is how the air is moving through the mouth, including the control of the degree and duration of the constriction/blockage of airflow.
What is meant by the ‘place’ of articulation?
It is the location where the constriction or blockage of airflow occurs, describing where the articulators approximate, make contact or where air is most turbulent.
What is a bilabial place of articulation?
Upper and lower lips involved/come together.
What is a labiodental place of articulation?
Upper teeth (incisors) resting on the lower lip.
What is an interdental place of articulation?
Tongue tip or blade lightly touches the upper teeth and slightly protrudes through upper and lower teeth.
What is an alveolar place of articulation?
Tip or blade of tongue near or touching the alveolar ridge.
What is a palatal place of articulation?
Tongue approximates the hard palate, or behind alveolar ridge. We do not fully touch the palate for English speech sounds.
What is a velar place of articulation?
Back of tongue near soft palate/velum.
What is a glottal place of articulation?
Airflow through the area between vocal folds.
For /h/ sound.
What are the bilabial consonants?
/p, b, m, w/
What are the labiodental consonants?
/f, v/
What are the interdental consonants?
/θ, ð/
What are the alveolar consonants?
/t, d, n, s, z, l, ɹ/
What are the palatal consonants?
/ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ, j/
What are the velar consonants?
/k, ɡ, ŋ/
What are the glottal consonants?
/h/
Explain the variety of ways to produce the /s/ sound.
Tongue goes up towards alveolar ridge, small centre channel that air goes through. Tongue tip is down behind bottom teeth, blade/back of tongue is up farther back in mouth creating constriction of airflow. End result is high pitch air at the alveolar ridge.
Explain the alveolar variations of retroflex /ɹ/:
- Tongue tip bent up at alveolar ridge. 2. Tongue tip bent up as a post-alveolar sound.
What is the bunch /ɹ/?
The tension is at the back of tongue and it is lateral tension – putting pressure on the back upper molars. Tongue is back towards velum.
What is a stop?
When the airflow is temporarily stopped by two articulators touching, pressure in oral cavity builds and then is released through the mouth. Velum is raised.
What is a nasal?
Produced when two articulators temporarily stop the flow of air by touching while the velum is lowered, so the air travels through the nose.
Important piece is the opened velum.
What are glides?
Consonant sound produced with minimal air friction and smooth movement of the articulators.
What are fricatives?
Produced by a partial obstruction of airflow by two articulators closely approximating to create air turbulence.
What are affricates?
Combination of stops and fricatives, produced by rapidly sequencing a stop and fricative in the same place.
What are liquids?
Produced with very minimal air friction from articulators which move very little (less than glides).
How do children acquire sounds based on manner classes?
They acquire them in a developmental sequence of easiest to hardest to produce, typically front sounds to back sounds.
Anterior to posterior.
Which manner classes are typically mastered first in speech development?
Stops, nasal, and glides.
What is a common mistake that children make?
Substituting the earlier manner classes for more complex sounds which develop later.
Example: ‘tun’ for ‘sun’ or ‘wed’ for ‘red’.
Which consonant sounds are stops?
/p, b, t, d, k, g/
Which consonant sounds are nasal?
/ m, n, ŋ /
Which consonant sounds are glides?
/ w, j /
Which consonant sounds are fricatives?
/ f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, h /
What consonant sounds are affricates?
/ tʃ, dʒ /
What consonant sounds are liquids?
/ l, ɹ /
What is another name for stops?
Plosives
What structures require adequate strength to produce plosives/stops?
Velum and bilabial strength
What can cause inadequate strength and impact the production of stops?
Injuries, paralysis, hemiparalysis, clefts, velopharyngeal inadequacy (VPI), ALS
Where is the air resonating for nasal sounds?
In the nasal cavity primarily, but also in the oral cavity (to different depths)
Air comes up and tries to exit mouth, but lips are closed so it can’t, since velum is open air exits through nose.
How many gestures do the glides /w, j/ need to be a completed sound?
Two
If you start /w/, but don’t finish it is just “ooo”. If you start /j/, but don’t finish it is just “eee”.
What are 3 phonotactic rules for /w/ and /j/?
- They can occur before a vowel
- They cannot occur before a consonant cluster
- They cannot occur in a word-final position
Provide examples of when /w/ and /j/ can appear in select consonant clusters.
/tw/, as in “twice”
/kw/, as in “queen”
/bju/, as in “beautiful”
/mj/, as in “music”
Why are affricates in the palatal category?
The air turbulence occurs behind the alveolar ridge in the palatal region, not where the alveolar contact is.
So it is about the turbulence of air.
How is the liquid /l/ produced?
It is a lateral sound, so the tongue tip articulates with the midline alveolar ridge and air flows over the sides of the tongue.
What is the only lateral sound in General North American English?
The liquid /l/
How is the liquid /ɹ/ produced?
There are three different ways to produce it: retroflex, raised and bunched.
What is important about the formants for /ɹ/?
F3 is very low.
Which speech sound has consonant forms and vowel forms?
The rhotic /ɹ/
What is a rhotic vowel and what is it sometimes called?
Vowel sound influenced by /ɹ/
Also called vocalic “r”.
What are sonorants?
Speech sounds where the airflow is largely unobstructed—formants can be seen on spectrogram.
Which sounds are sonorants?
Vowels, Nasals, Approximants/liquids/glides: /ɹ, j, l, w/
What are obstruents?
Sounds that are produced with airflow temporarily, completely, or partially impeded.
Which sounds are obstruents?
Stops, Fricatives, Affricates.
What are continuants?
Sounds that can be held for as long as you have air in your lungs.
Which sound might be referred to as a ‘lateral’?
/l/
What are syllabic sounds?
They are sounds that in a way, can form a syllable on their own.
What are sibilants?
They are fricative consonants with higher amplitude and pitch.
What are approximants?
They are sounds where the articulators are approximating, but do not fully touch.
What is a rhotic or retroflex sound?
/ɹ/
Rhotic is any sound with “r”-like qualities.
What is voicing?
When the vocal folds are approximating, creating a vibration.
What are cognates?
Two consonants with the same place and manner of articulation that only differ by voicing.
What are the cognates of English consonants?
/voiceless/, /voiced/
/p/, /b/
/t/, /d/
/f/, /v/
/s/, /z/
/k/, /g/
/θ/, /ð/ (thin vs there)
/ʃ/, /ʒ/ (sugar vs measure)
/tʃ/, /dʒ/ (chew vs judge)
