Linguistics 103 Summary of English Consonants and Vowels Hayes/Vicenik
General Phonetics Fall 2007
I. Consonants
|
Place:/ Manner: |
|
Bilabial |
Labio- Dental |
(Inter-) Dental |
Alveo- lar |
Palato- Alveolar |
Retro- flex |
Palatal |
Velar |
Labial- Velar |
Glottal |
|
STOPS |
voiceless |
p pot |
|
|
t tot |
|
|
|
k cot |
|
(ʔ)[1] |
|
|
voiced |
b bot |
|
|
d dot |
|
|
|
g got |
|
|
|
FRICATIVES |
voiceless |
|
f font |
θ
thought |
s sot |
ʃ
shot |
|
|
|
|
h hot |
|
|
voiced |
|
vVons |
ð though |
z zot |
ʒ vision |
|
|
|
|
|
|
AFFRICATES |
voiceless |
|
|
|
|
t͡ʃ chalk |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
voiced |
|
|
|
|
d͡ʒ jot |
|
|
|
|
|
|
NASALS |
(voiced) |
m Mott |
|
|
n not |
|
|
|
ŋ
song |
|
|
|
APPROXIMANTS (voiced) |
central lateral |
|
|
|
l lot |
|
(ɻ)[3] |
j yacht |
|
w watt |
|
|
TAP |
(voiced) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
II. Vowels (where the relevant English vowel is a diphthong, it is so transcribed)
|
|
|
Front |
Central |
Back |
|
|
|
|
(unrounded) |
(unrounded) |
unrounded |
rounded |
|
High |
(upper) |
i beat |
|
|
u boot |
|
|
|
|
(ɨ) Rose’s |
|
|
|
|
(lower) |
ɪ bit |
|
|
ʊ foot |
|
Mid |
(upper) |
e͡ɪ bait |
ə about |
|
o͡ʊ boat |
|
|
(lower) |
ɛ bet |
|
ʌ but |
|
|
Low |
|
æ
bat |
(a)[6] |
ɑ bot |
|
Diphthongs:
ɔ͡ɪ boy
also: ɜ˞˞ Bert = stressed retroflexed mid central vowel, also called “syllabic r”
ɚ butter = same as ɜ˞Õ, but stressless
Diacritics: ˈ = primary stress (placed before the stressed syllable)
ˌ = secondary stress. (placed before the stressed syllable)
̩ = syllabic (placed under [l] and [n] when they are syllabic)
[ˌæləˈge͡ɪʃən] allegation [ˈæləˌge͡ɪɾɚ] alligator [ˈɛɹəsˌtɑtl̩] Aristotle
[1] Not a phoneme of English, but commonly pronounced before vowels in emphatic speech; an apple [ən ˈʔæpl̩`].
[2] Correct IPA for central alveolar approximant is [¨]. Ladefoged uses a very broad transcription instead, namely [r]. In strict IPA, [r] is a tongue-tip trill.
[3] In some English dialects, the “r” sound is a retroflex approximant, made by curling the tip of the tongue upward and backward. Check to see how you say this sound.
[4] Occurs as the normal variant (allophone) of /t/ and /d/, when the preceding sound is a vowel, diphthong, or /ɹ/, and the following sound is a stressless vowel; as in butter.
[5] Bought has [ɔ] only in some American dialects; many speakers have no [ɔ]; they use [ɑ] in bought and similar words.
[6] Occurs only as the first element of the diphthongs [a͡ɪ] and [a͡ʊ].