EDUCATIONWELL

 CONSNANTS SOUNDS

In the last section we saw some important points of description of vowels briefly. This is next one, here we are discuss about description and classification of consonants. As you all know  in English there are 44 sound, out of these 20 vowel sounds( 12 monophthongs and 8 diphthongs) and 24 consonants sounds.

Consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract.

Table -  Classification  of English Consonants

Place	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palato- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Manner	Voiceless voiced	Voiceless voiced	Voiceless voiced	Voiceless voiced	Voiceless voiced	Voiceless voiced	Voiceless voiced	Voiceless voiced	Voiceless voiced
Plosive	p b			t d				k g
Affricate						tʃ dʒ
Nasal	.......' m			........../ n				........../ ŋ
Lateral				.........../ l
Fricative		f v	θ ð	s z		ʃ ʒ			h ........../
Friction less continuant					.........../ r
Semi- vowel	........../ w						........../ j	........../ (w)

Briefly Description of the Consonants of RP

/p/-  Voiceless Bilabial Plosive Consonants sounds

/b/-  Voiced Bilabial Plosive Consonants sounds

/t/-   Voiceless Alveolar Plosive Consonants sounds

/d/-   Voiced Alveolar Plosive Consonants sounds

/k/-  Voiceless Velar Plosive Consonants sounds

/g/-    Voiced  Velar Plosive Consonants sounds

/tʃ/-  Voiceless Palato- alveolar Affricate Consonants sounds

/dʒ/-   Voiced  Palato- alveolar Affricate  Consonants sounds

/m/-   Voiced  Bilabial  Nasal Consonants sounds

/n/-   Voiced  Alveolar Nasal Consonants sounds

/ŋ/-   Voiced  Velar Nasal Consonants sounds

/l/-  Voiced  Alveolar  lateral Consonants sounds

/f/-  Voiceless Labio- dental Fricative Consonants sounds

/v/- Voiced  Labio- dental Fricative Consonants sounds

/θ/- Voiceless Dental Fricative Consonants sounds

/ð/-Voiced Dental  Fricative Consonants sounds

/s/- Voiceless Alveolar Fricative Consonants sounds

/z/-Voiced Alveolar Fricative Consonants sounds

/ʃ/- Voiceless Palato- alveolar Fricative Consonants sounds

/ʒ/-Voiced Palato- alveolar Fricative Consonants sounds

/h/- Voiceless  Glottal Fricative Consonants sounds

/r/- Voiced Post- alveolar Friction less continuant Consonants sounds

/w/- Voiced  labio- Velar Semi- Vowel Consonants sounds

/j/- Voiced Palatal  Semi- Vowel Consonants sounds

    here, we are trying to provide very easy to easy tricks, cues regarding any topic. So, there are 24 consonants sounds, above you can see briefly explanation description and classification on based on major six following questions.

• Is the airstream provided by the lungs or by some other organs?
• Do the  vocal cords and vibrate or not?
• Is the soft palate raised or lowered? 
• Is the air forced out or drawn inward?
• At what point does the articulation take place?
• What is  the manner articulation?

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