Consonants

Consonants

The major difference between consonants and vowels, is that when a vowel is produced, airflows from the lungs without obstruction unlike when a consonant is produced the airflow from the lungs is interrupted somewhere in the mouth. We therefore say that a consonant is a speech sound that is produced with the obstruction of air stream. The obstruction could said to be either partial or complete when some consonants are produced the flow is obstructed by the lips. This kind of obstruction is called complete or total consonant like /p/ is produced. On the other hand, when a letter like /I/ is produced the flow of air is partially obstructed by the lower lip and the upper teeth. The obstruction here is partial because even if the lower lip and the teeth are in contact, air still passes through the narrow space between the lip and the teeth. We say that air however passes with some frictional noise.

The important thing about the production of consonant is that there is always an amount of obstruction of the air-stream from the lungs. The degree of obstruction of the air is one of the three important factors used in classifying the English Consonants. We therefore can classify consonant based on these:

1. Place of articulation
2. Manner of articulation
3. State of the glottis

 Some Letters but different sounds

There are some letters that occurs in words that are the same but the sound production are different e.g. the vowel are:

/a/ in air, aeroplane, tape, aim.

/a/ in have, about, alive, laugh

/e/ in egg, end, eight, enter

/e/ in English, eat, easy, east.

/p/ in Psychology, photo

/p/ in point, part

Some sound but different letters

There are some sounds that are the same but the letters are different in some words e.g.

/i:/ in leave, beef, sieve, receive, heat,

/i:/ in speech sound called the long /i:/ here the tongue is kept longer in the same position than the short /i/, /f/ in fight, laugh, photo, lieutenant.

Sound contrast

Consonants sound contrast: There are three types initial, medial and final

1. Initial is the consonant at the beginning of the word e.g. Pin, bin, sink, zinc, fat, bat, queen, king etc.
2. Media this occurs at the middle of the word e.g. Prices, Prizes, written, ridden.
3. Final this occurs at the endboth, boat, fish.

Vowel sound contrast: Initial, the vowel that occurs at the beginning of some words e.g. eat, it, eel, under, until, over. Medial the vowels that occur at the middle of some words e.g. Pan, pen, fan, fun, bead, photo.

Consonant clusters: This is the occurrence of two or more consonants in a word without an intervening vowel in English, there are usually an initial clusters of two or more consonants.

Identification of consonants clusters is not easy in some English word by just looking at the written form of the word. Such words show the letters only but when they are pronounced, there reveal the consonant clusters in them. E.g. Few, New, View, Hew, Skew, Stupid, Student.

On the other hand, we see occurrence of clusters at the initial of these words, bride, crime, flame, stand, sprint, dwell, shrink, stray. When the clusters are more than two, often times letter “s” begins the word e.g.  Sprint, Strong, Stray, Stranded, Stripe, Scrap.

Voice and voiceless sounds

Voiced sound is the production of consonant and vowel sounds with the involvement of the vocal cords. The vocal cords as well as your breath are moved e.g. k, g, d, z.  voiceless sound is the production of consonant sounds without the involvement of the movement of the vocal cords e.g. s, ch, h.