As we already know, there are forty-four speech sounds on English. While twenty of them is vowels, the remaining twenty four are consonants. A consonant is produced with the flow if air from the lungs is in erupted somewhere in the ducal clarity (mouth).
A consonant is therefore a speech sound which produced with the obstruction of airstream is. The obstruction could be ‘partial ‘or ‘total’, The important thing about the production of a consonant, therefore, is that there is always a degree of obstruction of the airstream from the lungs. The degree of obstruction of air is one of the three important factors used in classifying the English consonants.
These factors are usually considered in the classification of consonants. These are:
Place of articulation.
Manner of articulation.
State of glottis.
Here are the lists of consonant sound with examples.
- /p/ as in pan,prefect,nap
- /b/ as in bud, rubber, rubs.
- /t/ as in tea, seat, heater.
- /k/ as in come, marking, pack.
- /d/ as in dip, hide, riddles.
- /g/ as in get, target, rag.
- /f/ as in fork, suffer, cough.
- /v/ as in van, river, live.
- /0/ as in anthem, think, both.
- /∂ / as in this, father, breathes.
- /s/ as in sip, racing, place.
- /z/ as in Zink, razor, has.
- /S/ as in ship, lashes, fish.
- // as in genre, vision, garage.
- /h/ as in hat, behave
- /tS/ as in cheap, richer, teach.
- /d/ as in joy, rejoice, page.
- /l/ as in lock, follow, sell.
- /r/ as in rag, borrow,______
- /w/ as in win, rewind,______
- /j/ as in yes, _______.
- /m/ as in man, remain, him.
- /n/ as in net, runner, rain.
- /J/ as in singer, bang, _________.
From the above example above, we can see that most of the consonant can occur at the beginning, middle and end of word but a few of there consonant are restricted to certain position.
Classification according to features.
| State of the Glottis | Place of Articulation | ||
| STOP
(PLOSIVE) |
Voiceless | Voiced |
Bilabial Alveolar Velar |
| P
T K |
B
d g |
||
| FRICATIVE | F
Ø S S H |
V
∂ Z |
Labia dental
Dental Alveolar Pala to-Alveolar Glottal |
| AFFRICATE | tS | d | Palato-Avleolar |
| LATERAL | L | Alveolar | |
| LIQUID | R | Alveolar | |
| SEMI VOWEL | w
j
|
Bilabial
Palatal |
|
| NASAL | M
N J |
Bilabial
Alveolar Velar |
|
CONSONANT CLUSTER
This is the placement of two or more consonant side by side in a word. In many of Nigeria language there is no consonant cluster but in English, there may be initial cluster of two or three consonant. The following are example of consonant cluster. Garden, buffer, friend, peddle, coffle, little, cotton, settles. E.t.c.
Clusters of two consonants
Example:
Bride crime
Shrink stand
Glad crop
Dwell flame
Play tray.
In English words, there may be a consonant at the end of a word. While two or three consonant can occur at the beginning of a word in English, the language permits at most four consonant in a cluster at the end of a word. Examples: lion, tempts, exempts, sixths, prompt, seed e.t.c.
See also