LECTURE 3. THE SYSTEM OF ENGLISH CONSONANT PHONEMES.

Issues of the lecture:

1) Articulatory and acoustic peculiarities of consonants.

2) The notion of quality of a consonant.

3) The classification principles of English consonants

a) the type of obstruction and the manner of production of noise;

b) the degree of noise (the problem of sonorants);

c) the active speech organ & the place of articulation (the problem of phonological oppositions);

d) the work of the vocal cords& the force of articulation;

e) the position of the soft palate.

4) The problem of affricates classification.

5) Modifications of consonants in connected speech

Things to pay special attention:

Following L. V. Scerba, most Russian phoneticians use the terms dorsal, apical, cacuminal, and retroflex(ed) to refer to the position of the very tip of the tongue (the tongue-point) with respect to the upper front teeth, the teeth-ridge and its back slope rather than to the part of the tongue, as the usage is with American and British phoneticians.

Thus, dorsal are considered by most Russian phoneticians to be those consonants in the articulation of which the blade (=dorsum) of the tongue touches or approaches the upper teeth and the gums while the tongue-point turns down towards the lower teeth and is passive, as in the case of the Russian [т, д, н, с, з] (Fig. 1).

Apical are consonants in the articulation of which the tongue-point touches or approaches the teeth ridge or the upper teeth at a right angle to them, as in the case of the English [t, d, n, 1] and, often, [s, z] (Fig. 1).

Cacuminal are consonants in the articulation of which the tongue-point is turned up and back against the teeth-ridge on its back slope so that a spoon-shaped depression is formed in the fore part of the tongue, as in the case of the RP constrictive sonorous (frictionless) [r] (Fig. 1).

This interpretation of the above terms is in accordance with their definitions given in dictionaries, as, for instance, in Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language (unabridged).

A. C. Gimson, however, points out that the term apex is sometimes used to denote the region of the tip and blade of the tongue, while dorsum is sometimes employed to designate the whole upper area of the tongue from the front to the back inclusive. Therefore the terms apical and dorsal in American linguistic literature are equivalent to the terms forelingual and backlingual respectively, used by Russian phoneticians (Fig. 3). As for latter's term mediolingual, its equivalent in American linguistic literature is frontal, e.g. [j] (the front = the middle of the tongue).

A. L. Trakhterov retains the terms forelingual, mediolingual, backlingual, apical, cacuminal, and dorsal, using the latter term to cover both mediolingual and backlingual consonants, but introduces the term predorsal to designate in terms of active speech organs the English dental consonants [T, ð], the Russian [т, д, н, л, ц], which he calls dental-alveolar, and [C, s, z], [c, з], which he considers to be alveolar.

Another classificatory controversy, though not of a terminological character, is the definition of the consonant [h]. L. V. Scerba insisted on classifying it as a lower-pharyngeal consonant and is followed in this definition by G. P. Torsuyev and most other Russian phoneticians. However, British and American phoneticians, as well as A. L. Trakhterov, define the [h]-sound as a glottal, or laryngeal, consonant.

The articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning are called non-distinctive, irrelevant or redundant; for instance, it is impossible in English to oppose an aspirated [p] to a non-aspirated one in the same phonetic context to distinguish meanings. That is why aspiration is a non-distinctive feature of English consonants.

The articulatory features which form the invariant of the phoneme are called distinctive or relevant. To extract relevant feature of the phoneme we have to oppose it to some other phoneme in the same phonetic context. If the opposed sounds differ in one articulatory feature and this difference brings about changes in the meaning of the words the contrasting features are called relevant. For example, the words port and court differ in one consonant only, that is the word port has the initial consonant [p], and the word court begins with [k]. Both sounds are oc-clusive and fortis, the only difference being that [p] is labial and [k] is backlingual. Therefore it is possible to say that labial and backlingual articulations are relevant in the system of English consonants.

If an allophone of some phoneme is replaced by an allophone of a different phoneme the mistake is called phonological, because the meaning of the word is inevitably affected. It happens when one or more relevant features of the phoneme are not realized, e.g.:

When the vowel [i] in the word beat becomes slightly more open, more advanced or is no longer diphthongized the word beat may be perceived as quite a different word bit. It is perfectly clear that this type of mistakes is not admitted in teaching pronunciation to any type of language learner.

If an allophone of the phoneme is replaced by another allophone of the same phoneme the mistake is called phonetic. It happens when the invariant of the phoneme is not modified and consequently the meaning of the word is not affected, e.g.:

When the vowel [i:] is fully long in such a word as sheep, for instance, the quality of it remaining the same, the meaning of the word does not change. Nevertheless language learners are advised not to let phonetic mistakes into their pronunciation. If they do make them the degree of their foreign accent will certainly be an obstacle to the listener's perception.

Aspiration

This is noise made when a consonantal constriction is released and air is allowed to escape relatively freely. English [p t k] at the beginning of a syllable are aspirated in most accents, so that in words like 'pea', 'tea', 'key' the silent period while the compressed air is prevented from escaping by the articulatory closure is followed by a sound similar to [h] before the voicingof the vowel begins. This is the result of the vocal folds being widely parted at the time of the articulatory release. It is noticeable that when [p t k] are preceded by [s] at the beginning of a syllable they are not aspirated. Pronunciation teachers used to make learners of English practise aspirated plosives by seeing if they could blow out a candle flame with the rush of air after [p t k] - this can, of course, lead to a rather exaggerated pronunciation. A rather different articulation is used for so-called voiced aspirated plosives found in many Indian languages (often spelt 'bh', 'dh', 'gh' in the Roman alphabet) where after the release of the constriction the vocal folds vibrate to produce voicing, but are not firmly pressed together; the result is that a large amount of air escapes at the same time, producing a "breathy" quality. It is not necessarily only plosives that are aspirated: both unaspirated and aspirated affricates are found in Hindi, for example, and unaspirated and aspirated voiceless fricatives are found in Burmese.

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Literature:

1) Соколова М.А., Гинтовт К.П., Кантер Л.А., Крылова Н.И. Практическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб.для студ.высш.уч.заведений. –М.:Гуманит.изд.центр ВЛАДОС, 2003.- с.24-66.

2) Васильев В.А. Фонетика английского языка. Теоретический курс. - М: «Высшая школа», 1969.- С. 98-119.

3) Дикушина О.И. Фонетика английского языка. Теоретический курс. – М.: Просвещение, 1965. – С.77-90.

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