Fricatives
Fricatives are produced when the air passes through a narrow passage
where it causes friction of various types. Fricatives are continuant
consonants, which means that they can be produced continually without
interruption. There are nine fricatives in English such as /f, v,ϴ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ
and /h/. They can be described as follows:
1. /f/ labiodental, fricative, voiceless, fortis
2. /v/ labiodental, fricative, voiced, lenis
3. /ϴ/ dental, fricative, voiceless, fortis
4. /ð/ dental, fricative, voiced, lenis
5. /s/ alveolar, fricative, voiceless, fortis
6. /z/ alveolar, fricative, voiced, lenis
7. /ʃ/ post – alveolar, fricative, voiceless, fortis
8. /ʒ/ post – alveolar, fricative, voiced, lenis
9. /h/ glottal, fricative, voiceless
Distribution of fricatives
The fricatives /f, v, ϴ, ð, s, z/ and /ʃ/ ocuur initially, medially and finally.
/ʒ/ occurs medially and finally but not ini8tially as in measure /meʒə/,
garage /gəræʒ/. /h/ occurs initially and medially but not finally as in who
/hu:/, behind /bihaind/. Phonologically, /h/ is a consonant. It is found before
vowels. /h/ can be omitted in unstressed pronunciation of the words her, he,
him, his and the auxiliary have, has, had
The affricates
Affricates are rather complex consonants. they begin as plosives and end
as fricatives. Such sounds are /ʧ/ and /ʤ/ as illustrated in the word change
/ʧeinʤ/ where it has /ʧ/ and /ʤ/. It should be noted that /ʧ/ and /ʤ/ are
considered as single phonemes. Thus the word change transcribed above has
four phonemes such as: /ʧ/,/ei/, /n/ and /ʤ/. It is impossible to class all
sequences of plosive plus fricative as affricate. For example, the combination
/k/ plus /f/ in the middle of the word breakfast is not affricate because /k/ and
/f/ are produced with different articulators in that /k/ is produced when the
back of the tongue touches the soft palate, whereas /f/ is produced when the
lower lip touches the upper front teeth. On the other hand, /t/ and /ʃ/ are
produced with same articulators, I,e. the blade of the tongue touches the
alveolar ridge. This means that they are homorganic.
Fortis consonants
Fortis fricatives and plosives shorten the preceding vowels.thus, the
diphthong /ai/ in ice /ais/ is shorter than /ai/ in eyes/aiz/. Similarly, fortis
consonants such as /p/, /t/ and /k/ shorten the preceding consonants such as
/l/, /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/ as in belt /belt/, bent /bent/ and so on. Voiced consonants
such as /l, r, w j/ become voiceless when preceded by fortis consonants such
as the plosives /p, t, k/ as in play /plei/ and so on.