Linguistics 103                                     Summary of English Consonants and Vowels    Hayes/Lefkowitz

General Phonetics                                                                                                                                          Winter 2012

 

 

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

 

 

 

ɹ2rot

   l lot

 

(ɻ)[2]

j yacht

 

w watt

 

TAP

(voiced)

 

 

 

(ɾ)[3] otter

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

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)

ej bait

ə about

 

ow boat

   

 

(lower)

ɛ bet

 

ʌ but

ɔ bought[4]

Low

 

æ bat

(a)[5]

ɑ bot

 

           

Diphthongs:[6]                                              

 

               ej bait           ow boat

               aj bite           aw bout

                         ɔj  boy

also:      ɚ˞ Bert, butter   = stressed retroflexed mid central vowel, also called “syllabic r”

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)

 

                       [ˌæləˈgejʃən] allegation [ˈæləˌgejɾɚ]  alligator              [ˈɛɹəsˌtɑtl̩]   Aristotle


[1] Not a phoneme of English, but commonly pronounced before vowels in emphatic speech; an apple [ən ˈʔæpl̩`].

[2] In some English dialects, the “r” sound is a retroflex approximant ([ɻ]), made by curling the tip of the tongue upward and backward.

[3] Not a phoneme.  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.

[4] Bought has [ɔ] only in some American dialects; many speakers have no [ɔ]; they use [ɑ] in bought and similar words.

[5] Occurs only as the first element of the diphthongs [aj] and [aw].

[6] Rogers is a bit nonstandard on diphthongs.  More commonly, this would be [eɪ] bait / [aɪ] bite / [oʊ] boat / [aʊ] about / [ɔɪ] boy.  Both styles correct for this course.