Articulatory Phonetics and Description

An articulatory description of any consonant or approximant must specify (at least) its place and manner of articulation, whether it is voiced or voiceless, and whether it is nasal or oral. For example, /m/ is made at the lips by stopping the airstream, is voiced, and is nasal. These features are represented as:

In learning or teaching consonant phonemes, we are particularly concerned with two things: where the sound is made (the point of articulation) and how the sound is made (the manner of articulation).

Consider the sound /b/ as an example: Make this sound and notice what you are doing. To make /b/ , you put both lips together, creating a seal; air cannot pass out of your mouth. Now you push air from your lungs into your mouth. Pressure builds up at the lips. When it reaches a certain level, you relax the muscles holding your lips together, the lips puff outward, the air escapes, and /b/ is made. For this sound, then, the point of articulation is the two lips; the manner of articulation is that of building up pressure and then releasing it (a stop).

One more important thing happen in making /b/. To make the sound, you must tighten the bands of muscle in your throat -the vowel cords- as you blow air across them. The resultant hum is called voicing. (If you do not tighten the vocal cords when you attempt to say /b/, you will find yourself saying something like /p/ instead.)

With the three things we have noticed about /b/, we have now defined this phoneme: /b/ is bilabial, voiced, stop. No other sound shares these same characteristics. But every consonant phoneme can be describe in a similar way: by its point of articulation, its status as either vocied or voiceless, and its manner of articulation. Thus, /p/, the sound you produce if you try /b/ without tightening the vocal cords, is the bilabial, voiceless, stop.

The following chart page gives you basic information about the consonant phonemes. It shows you each phoneme´s symbol, its point and manner of articulation, and its status as voiced or voiceless. Individual phonemes are discussed and diagrammed and practiced.

Clasification of phonemes

In analyzing the articulatory requisites for the realization of /ʃ/, we find that it can be described –acording to voicing, articulatory organ, place and manner- as a voiceless coronal-prepalatal fricative. Although that is a general satisfactory phonetic description, another production characteristic is lip rounding describing such an additional feature becomes necessary because some children with “sh” problems do not realize the rounding. In fact, the resulting aberrant production may be due entirely to the absence of this lip-rounding feature.

The following phonetic descriptions classify the consonants of General American English according to the parameters of voicing, organ, place, and manner. (The organ, place, manner, and voicing features are based on the phonetic descriptions provided by Bronstein (1960) and Kantner and West (1960). These features are seen as descriptive and may, therefore, vary somewhat from speaker to speaker).

[p] voiceless bilabial stop-plosive

(Because both organ and place of articulation are the lower and upper lips, respectively, one should actually say labiolabial. However, the term bilabial is usually preferred.)

[b] voiced bilabial stop-plosive

[t] voiceless coronal-alveolar stop-plosive

[d] voiced coronal-alveolar stop-plosive

[k] voiceless postdorsal-velar stop-plosive

[g] voiced postdorsal-velar stop-plosive

[f] voiceless labio-dental fricative

[v] voiced labio-dental fricative

[s] voiceless apico-alveolar or predorsal-alveolar fricative

[s] (and [z]) can be produced in one of two ways: with the tongue tip up (i.e., as apico-alveolar fricative [sibilant]) or with the tongue tip resting behind the lower incisors (i.e., predorsal-alveolar fricative [sibilant]).

[z] voiced apico-alveolar or predorsal-alveolar fricative

[ʃ] voiceless coronal-prepalatal or coronal-postalveolar fricative with lip rounding

[ʒ] voiced coronal-prepalatal or coronal-postalveolar fricative with lip rounding

[θ] voiceless apico-dental or interdental fricative

The [θ] and [ð] are typically produced with either the tongue tip resting behind the upper incisors (i.e., apicodental) or with the tongue tip between the upper and lower incisors (i.e., interdental).

[ð] voiced apico-dental or interdental fricative

[m] voiced bilabial nasal

[n] voiced coronal-alveolar nasal

[ŋ] voiced postdorsal-velar nasal

[w] voiced labial-velar glide or approximant

[M] voiceless labial-velar fricative (IPA, 1996)

[j] voiced mediodorsal-mediopalatal glide or approximant

[l] voiced apico-alveolar lateral or lateral approximant

[r] voiced mediodorsal-mediopalatal rhotic approximant (bunched) or voiced apico-prepalatal rhotic approximant (retroflexed), officially [ɹ]. Here, the term apico refers to the under-side of the apex of the tongue.

[h] voiceless unlocalized open consonant that is, an aspirate.

Although this sound is sometimes classified as a laryngeal or glottal fricative, in General American English, there is normally no constriction at the laryngeal, pharyngeal, or oral levels. See Heffner (1975) for a discussion of the [h] production in General American English.

[ʧ] voiceless coronal-alveolar stop portion followed by a voiceless coronal-prepalatal fricative portion

[ʤ] voiced coronal-alveolar stop portion followed by a voiced coronal-prepalatal fricative portion.