Phones
editThis table shows the consonant sounds in English. Phonemes are unmarked, but allophones are enclosed in parentheses, and dialectal phones are marked with asterisks.
Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | (m̥) m | (n̥) n | ŋ | |||||
Stop | (pʰ) p b | (tʰ) t d | (kʰ) k ɡ | ʔ | ||||
Affricate | (tʃʰ) tʃ dʒ |
|||||||
Fricative | f v | θ ð | s z | ʃ ʒ | x* | h | ||
Flap | ɾ* | |||||||
Trill | (r̥) r | |||||||
Approximant | (ç) j | ʍ* w | ||||||
Lateral | l (ɫ l̥) |
- Fortis stops and affricates /p t tʃ k/ are always voiceless. They are aspirated [pʰ tʰ tʃʰ kʰ] when they occur alone at the beginning of stressed syllables, as in pin [pʰɪn], but are unaspirated in other cases, as in spin [spɪn]. At the end of words, they are frequently preglottalized, as in nip [nɪˀp].
- Lenis stops and affricates /b d dʒ ɡ/ are always unaspirated. They are partially voiced at the beginning and end of words, as in bin [p̬ɪn] and nib [nɪp̬], and fully voiced between vowels, as in about [əˈbaʊt].
- The dental fricatives /θ, ð/ are lost in some dialects, and instead pronounced as labiodental fricatives [f, v], or dental or alveolar stops [t, d] (th-fronting or th-stopping). Both pronunciations occur in Southern England, Ireland, and in African American Vernacular English.
- The alveolar stops /t, d/ are pronounced as an alveolar flap [ɾ] between vowels in the United States, Canada, Australian, and New Zealand (intervocalic alveolar-flapping).
- The alveolar stop /t/ is pronounced as a glottal stop [ʔ] before nasals in most dialects, as in button [ˈbʌʔ.n̩], and after vowels in Southern England, as in butter [ˈbʌʔə] and what [ˈwɒʔ].
- The rhotic consonant /r/ is the approximant [ɹ] in most dialects, but sometimes a trill or flap [r ɾ] in Scottish, Irish, and Indian English.
- In RP, the lateral approximant /l/ is pronounced as clear or plain [l] before vowels, but dark or velarized [ɫ] after vowels at the end of syllables. In some dialects, dark l is pronounced as a labiovelar approximant [w], and in American and Scottish English most cases of /l/ are pronounced as dark [ɫ].
- Conservative dialects like Scottish English contrast a voiceless [ʍ] in whine, typically analyzed as the sequence /hw/, with the voiced [w] in wine. The voiceless sound has merged with voiced [w] in most dialects.
- [ç] is the pronunciation of the sequence /hj/ as in huge.
- Sonorants /j, l, n, m, r, w/ become voiceless /ç, l̥, m̥, n̥, ɹ̥, ʍ/ after voiceless obstruents (stops, affricates, fricatives): please [ˈpl̥iːz], Cockney [ˈkɒkn̥i].
- The glottal fricative /h/ is lost in Cockney and Yorkshire English.
Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||
Stop | (pʰ) p b | (tʰ) t d | (kʰ) k ɡ | ʔ | ||||
Affricate | (tʃʰ) tʃ dʒ |
|||||||
Fricative | f v | θ ð | s z | ʃ ʒ | x* | h | ||
Flap | ɾ* | |||||||
Trill | r | |||||||
Approximant | j | ʍ* w | ||||||
Lateral | l (ɫ) |