LECTURE 6 FRICATIVES AND AFFRICATES
Fricative is a consonant with the characteristic that
Fricatives are continuant consonants – you can continue making them without interruption as long as
you have enough air in your lungs.
English fricatives
(Roach, 2009, p. 40)
Labiodental fricatives
Examples:↓
Dental fricatives
Examples:↓
Alveoral fricatives
Examples:↓
Post-alveoral fricatives
Examples:↓
Glottal fricative
[h]
Many English native speakers are surprisingly sensitive about this consonant.
Practically all English speakers omit the [h] sound in non-initial unstressed pronunciations of words
such as her, he, him, his and the like.
Each place of articulation has a pair of phonemes – one fortis and one lenis, with the exception of
glottal.
It is said that the fortis fricatives are articulated with greater force than lenis and their friction noise
is louder.
The fortis fricatives have the effect of
FORTIS/LENIS DISTINCTION
Each pair so far (excluding [h]), belong to pairs distinguished between fortis and lenis.
What happens when [l], [m], [n], [ŋ] is followed by a fortis consonant such as [p], [t], [k]? Examples:
belt [belt], bump [bʌmp], bent [bent], bank [bæŋk].
The effect on the continuant consonants is
Affricates of English
Affricate [ˈæfrɪkət] is a rather complex consonant – it begins as a plosive and ends as a fricative.
When [tʃ] is final in the syllable, it has the effect of shortening a preceding vowel – the same way as
other fortis consonants do.
LIST OF RESOURCES
Cruttenden, A. Gimson’s Pronunciation of English. Hodder Education, 2008.
Crystal, D. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Blackvell Publishing, 2008.
Davenport M. – Hannahs S. Introducing Phonetics and Phonology. Hodder Arnold, 2005.
Richards, J. – Schmidt, R. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics.
Longman, 2010.
Roach, P. English Phonetics and Phonology. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Underhill, A. Learning and teaching pronunciation. Macmillan, 2005.