Consonant Chart for English

** Note that the content of this chart is identical to the content of the chart on page 111 in your text book - the only difference is in the formatting, which is easier to read here than in the text (I think, anyway).
place manner [-voice]

Bilabial

Labiodental

InterDental

Alveolar

Palatal

Velar

Glottal pin bust

Examples tin dust kin gust

/p/ /b/ /f/ /v/ // //

/t/ /d/ /s/ /z/ /s/ /z/ /c/ /j/

/k/ // /h/

Stops
[+voice] [-voice]

fin thin sin shin hit van the cheap jeep zoo treasure

Fricatives
[+voice] [-voice]

Affricates
[+voice]

Nasals
[+voice]

/m/

/n/ /l/ /r/ /y/

//

seem scene late well rate yell

sing

Liquids
[+voice]

Glides
[+voice]

/w/

Note that when there are voiced and voiceless pairs, the voiceless sound is on top, and the voiced sound is on bottom.
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What You Need To Know For Consonants 1. Place of Articulation This refers to where the sound is produced BILABIAL: with both lips LABIODENTAL: between lower lip and upper teeth DENTAL/INTERDENTAL: between the teeth ALVEOLAR: the ridge behind the upper teeth PALATAL: the hard palate VELAR: the soft palate or velum GLOTTAL: space between the vocal cords/folds ex: ex: ex: ex: ex: ex: ex: / p, b, m, w / / f, v / / , / / t, d, s, z, n, l / / s, z, c, j, r, y / / k, , / /h/

2. Manner of Articulation This refers to h o w the sound is made Obstruents (sounds made with a high degree of air obstruction): STOPS: During production of these sounds, the airflow from the lungs is completely blocked at some point. FRICATIVES: The flow of air is constricted, but not totally stopped or blocked. The restricted airflow through the narrowed opening creates friction (this is where the term fricative comes from). AFFRICATES: These can be thought of as a combination of a stop and a fricative. These sounds begin like stops, with a complete blockage of air/closure of the vocal tract, and end with a restricted flow of air like fricatives. Sonorants (sounds made with relatively little obstruction of air): NASALS: With these sounds, the flow of air is cut off through the mouth and redirected through the nasal passage instead. In a sense, theres complete obstruction because no air escapes through the mouth, which is why nasals sometimes called nasal stops. But because the air flows unobstructed through the nose, these sounds are classified as sonorants. LIQUIDS: These sounds are created with little obstruction of air. Instead, we position our tongue in the vocal tract and let the air pass around it. Because its hard to pinpoint the obstruction, these sounds are less solid than some other consonants, which is why theyre called liquids. GLIDES: These sounds, like liquids, are produced with very little obstruction of air. To produce glides, we bring articulators close together and then pull them apart, letting the sound glide off them. Glides are sometimes referred to as semi-vowels because they are mid-way between consonants and vowels, but they are classified as consonants. /y/ and /w/ are acoustically similar to /i/ and /u/. 3. Voicing Are the vocal cords vibrating (voiced) or not vibrating (voiceless)? Feel your throat when you produce consonants to feel if voicing is present or not, or cover yours and listen for the reverberation. ENG 118, Spring 2004 52

Vowel Chart for English

** Note that there are important differences between this chart and the one on page 107 in the textbook. You should learn this chart because you will be held responsible for the material as it is presented in this chart, not the textbooks; this does not mean, however, that there is anything wrong with the textbooks chart - it simply reflects the differences of opinion in the field of linguistics. See p. 112 in the text for an explanation of such differences.

Front
[+tense]

Central

/i/ (seat)
-----------------------// (sit)

High
[-tense] [+tense]

Back /u/ (sui t) ---------------------// (pu t) /o/ (boat) ---------------------// (caught) **

-----------------------/a/ (sock) **

Rounded vowels

/e/ (say)
-----------------------// (se t) ---------------------// (sa t)

Mid
[-tense] [+tense]

/ / (bird) --------------------// (sofa)* // (suds)*

------------------------

Low
[-tense]

* dont confuse // and // // is used in unstressed syllables, while // is in stressed syllables ** some speakers (including most Californians) dont have // in their dialect; they use /a/ instead DIPHTHONGS: vowel + glide /ay/ night /y/ boy /aw/ cow

What You Need To Know For Vowels During the production of vowels, there is no obstruction of the airflow. The air stream is modified by the positioning/configurations of the tongue, lips, and jaw resulting in different vowel qualities. With vowels, placement of tongue (from front to back and from bottom to roof of mouth ) and the amount of lip rounding are important in defining and classifying the sound FRONT/CENTRAL/BACK: These three refer to the position of the tongue from front to back of the mouth during the production of the sound HIGH/MID/LOW: These refer to the placement of the tongue from roof to floor (bottom) of the mouth when making the sound LIP ROUNDING: This designation refers to whether the lips are rounded (O-shape) or spread (no rounding) when the sound is being made. /u, , o, / are rounded (/a/ is not); front and central vowels are not rounded in English. TENSE VS LAX: Also important in describing vowel sounds are the designations TENSE & LAX, which refer to the relative tenseness of the vocal muscles. /i, e, u, o, / are tense; all others are lax. Most tense vowels (except for / /) are actually diphthongal in most dialects of American English, though we dont represent them as such in our chart. ENG 118, Spring 2004 53

More about Schwa The best way to think about schwa is as a reduced form of the lax vowels. The exact form it takes will vary from word to word. Sometimes its a little higher, lower, farther forward or farther back than other times, but its always an unstressed vowel that is relatively centralized. The chart below represents on way of conceptualizing schwa.
[+tense] High [-tense] [+tense] Mid [-tense] [+tense] Low [-tense]

Rounded

------------------// // // // // // //

------------------//

------------------// ---------------//

------------------// -------------------/a/

Graphic representation of the reduction of lax vowels to schwa Working with Schwa The table above illustrates the reduction of lax vowels to schwa in unstressed syllables. The words in Columns A and B below also illustrate this phenomenon. Transcribe them to see which vowels have been reduced. Circle the lax vowels that are reduced to schwa. Column A perfect (adj) Column B perfect (V)

neutrality

neutral

residue

residual

acid

acidic

anonymous

anonymity

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