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Speech sounds are traditionally classified as either vowels or consonants. Vowels are the class of sounds that make the least obstruction to the flow of air during speech production, while consonants obstruct the flow of air through the vocal tract. Consonants are further classified as either voiced or voiceless. Voiced consonants are pronounced with the same vocal murmur that is heard in vowels, while voiceless consonants lack this murmur. Voiced consonants include b, d, g, l, r, m, n, z, consonantal i, and v, while voiceless consonants include p, t, c (k, q), f, h, s, and x. In addition, consonants can be classified based on the place of articulation, or where in the mouth the sound is produced. For example, coronal articulations are made with the front of the tongue, dorsal articulations are made with the back of the tongue, and radical articulations are made in the pharynx.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Minimal linguistic unit | Phone (speech sound) |
| Minimal unit | Gesture (group of functionally equivalent articulatory movement patterns) |
| Speech sounds | Voiced, voiceless |
| Vowels | Sounds that do not obstruct airflow |
| Consonants | Sounds that obstruct airflow |
| Voiced consonants | b, d, g, l, r, m, n, z, consonantal i, v |
| Voiceless consonants | p, t, c (k, q), f, h, s, x |
| Nasals | Voiced mutes with breath passing through the nose |
| Liquids or semi-vowels | /l/, /r/, /m/, /n/, /ng/ |
| Transitionals | /w/, /y/, /h/ |
| Affricates | Plosive or stop consonant followed by a fricative or spirant |
| Articulations | Coronal, dorsal, radical |
| Coronal articulations | Front of the tongue |
| Dorsal articulations | Back of the tongue |
| Radical articulations | Pharynx |
| Lip articulations | Bilabial, labiodental, linguolabial |
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What You'll Learn
Voiced vs. voiceless consonants
Speech sounds are traditionally classified based on whether they are voiced or voiceless. Voiced consonants are pronounced with the same vocal murmur that is heard in vowels, while voiceless consonants lack this murmur. The production of voiced consonants involves the vibration of the vocal cords, while voiceless consonants do not use the vocal cords, resulting in a lack of vocal cord vibration. Instead, the vocal cords are slack, allowing air to flow freely from the lungs through the mouth, where the tongue, teeth, and lips modify the sound.
Voiced consonants include b, d, g, l, r, m, n, z, consonantal i, and v. The vocal cords vibrate when pronouncing these consonants, which can be felt by placing a finger on the throat. Vowels (A, E, I, O, U) and diphthongs (combinations of two vowel sounds) are also considered voiced sounds.
On the other hand, voiceless consonants include p, t, c (k, q), f, h, s, x, and ch, f, k, p, s, sh, t, and th. These consonants are produced without engaging the vocal cords, resulting in hard, percussive sounds.
Understanding the distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants is essential for accurate pronunciation and spelling. For example, the past tense suffix "-ed" can represent different sounds depending on whether it follows a voiced or voiceless consonant. If "-ed" is preceded by a voiced consonant, such as "b" or "v", it is pronounced as a voiced "d". However, if "-ed" is preceded by a voiceless consonant like "k", it should be pronounced as a voiceless "t".
Additionally, the plural ending "s" can be either voiced or voiceless depending on the preceding consonant. If a word ends with an unvoiced consonant like "f", "k", "p", or "t", the final "s" is pronounced as /s/, as in "books". Conversely, if a word ends with a voiced consonant or vowel, the final "s" is pronounced as /z/, as in "chairs".
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Coronal, dorsal and radical places of articulation
Speech sounds are traditionally classified by their physiological production and acoustic qualities. The field of phonetics is traditionally divided into three sub-disciplines: articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, and auditory phonetics.
Articulatory phonetics deals with the configurations of the vocal tract used to produce speech sounds. Constrictions made with the tongue can be made in several parts of the vocal tract, classified into coronal, dorsal, and radical places of articulation.
Coronal articulations are made with the front of the tongue, and include dental, alveolar, and post-alveolar locations. Tongue postures can be apical (using the tongue tip), laminal (using the tongue blade), or sub-apical (using the bottom of the tongue). Coronal consonants are made with the tongue tip or blade and are unique as a group in that every manner of articulation is attested.
Dorsal articulations are made with the back of the tongue. Dorsal consonants are made using the tongue body rather than the tip or blade. Palatal consonants, a type of dorsal consonant, are made using the tongue body against the hard palate on the roof of the mouth.
Radical articulations are made in the pharynx. The pharynx is part of the vocal tract, which includes the oral tract within the mouth and the nasal tract within the nose.
These classifications are not always sufficient for distinguishing and describing all speech sounds, and more detailed places of articulation may be needed based on the specific area of the mouth in which the constriction occurs.
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Vowels and consonants
Speech sounds are traditionally classified into vowels and consonants. Vowels are the letters you can sound out without closing your mouth: A, E, I, O, and U. Every word in the English language needs at least one vowel. The letter Y is a bit of an anomaly, sometimes acting as a vowel and other times as a consonant or semi-vowel.
Vowels are usually split into two main categories based on sound quality: short vowel sounds and long vowel sounds. Short vowel sounds are short in duration and cannot be held without becoming distorted. Long vowel sounds, on the other hand, can be held without distorting their sound.
Consonants, on the other hand, are produced by restricting airflow. They are classified as either voiced or voiceless. Voiced consonants, such as b, d, g, l, r, m, n, z, and v, are pronounced with a vocal murmur similar to that of vowels. Voiceless consonants, like p, t, c (k, q), f, h, s, and x, lack this murmur. Consonants can also be further categorized in various ways, such as double consonants, mutes, and aspirates.
The study of speech sounds and their production is known as phonetics. It deals with the configurations of the vocal tract, including the lungs, vocal cords, and various articulators like the tongue and lips, to produce these distinct vowel and consonant sounds.
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Nasal sounds
Speech sounds are traditionally classified using phonetics, the study of speech sounds and their physiological production and acoustic qualities. Phonetics deals with the configurations of the
Nasal emissions during speech production can vary in audibility depending on the size of the VP opening. With a large VP opening, nasal emission is typically inaudible, while with a small VP opening, nasal emission can be very loud and distracting, known as nasal turbulence or nasal rustle. In the case of a large VP opening, hypernasality is the predominant characteristic of speech, while with a small opening, nasal emission becomes the dominant feature.
Overall, nasal sounds are an important aspect of speech production, and their characteristics can vary depending on factors such as the position of the VP valve and the classification of consonants as voiced or voiceless.
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Palatals
In phonology, palato-alveolar, alveolo-palatal, and palato-velar consonants are commonly grouped as palatals. Palatal consonants are produced by raising the middle or front part of the tongue towards or against the hard palate (the middle, front part of the roof of the mouth). The specific articulation can vary, leading to different types of palatal consonants.
The most common type of palatal consonant is the extremely common approximant [j], which ranks among the ten most common sounds in the world's languages. The nasal [ɲ] is also common, occurring in around 35% of the world's languages. Only a few languages in northern Eurasia, the Americas, and central Africa contrast palatal stops with postalveolar affricates—as in Hungarian, Czech, Latvian, Macedonian, Slovak, Turkish, and Albanian.
English has no purely palatal consonants, except for the y sound (a semivowel) in "you". The sh sound in "ship" and the zh sound represented as z in "azure" are usually classified as palato-alveolar sounds. The German ch sound in ich and the French gn (pronounced ny) in agneau are examples of palatal consonants.
Palatal consonants can be distinguished from apical palatalized consonants and consonant clusters of a consonant and the palatal approximant [j]. The common laminal "palatalized" alveolars, which also contrast with palatals, have a unique place of articulation and should be called alveolo-palatal consonants. Palatal consonants have their primary articulation toward or in contact with the hard palate, whereas palatalized consonants have a primary articulation in some other area and a secondary articulation involving movement towards the hard palate.
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Frequently asked questions
Speech sounds are the sounds produced when the vocal cords vibrate. They are studied in phonetics, a branch of linguistics that deals with the configurations of the vocal tract used to produce speech sounds.
Speech sounds are traditionally classified as either vowels or consonants. Vowels are sounds that make the least obstruction to airflow during speech production and include sounds like the 'a' in 'hat'. Consonants obstruct the flow of air through the vocal tract and are produced with articulators like the tongue or lower lip. Consonants can be voiced (produced with vocal fold vibration) or voiceless.
Phonemes are the basic linguistic units of sound for analysis. They are abstract units or sound types with many different versions produced in actual speech. These different versions are called phones and are the physical sounds produced. For example, the symbol /i/ represents the phoneme for the vowel sound heard in the word 'team'.
