LG204 background.pdf
LG204 background.pdf
LG204 background.pdf
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<strong>LG204</strong>-5-FY ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY Background<br />
Liquid approximants<br />
The term ‘approximant’ refers to a sound where any oral constriction is less close than<br />
that employed in the articulation of fricatives. Therefore, the nasals described above<br />
cannot be classified as approximants by virtue of the fact that the oral constriction<br />
involved is a stop. Whilst the most obvious secondary channel for the release of air<br />
must be the nasal cavity, other sonorant sounds are possible. English, like the<br />
majority of the world’s languages, employs the mouth as a secondary channel<br />
simultaneously with it acting as a locus for the primary constriction. The most<br />
obvious way in which this can be achieved is by forming a constriction at the alveolar<br />
ridge with the blade of the tongue whilst simultaneously lowering the sides of the<br />
tongue to allow air to escape that way. The sound made in this way is, of course, [l]<br />
which is known as a lateral approximant (lateral meaning ‘of the sides’). As we<br />
shall see in due course, there is more to the articulation of the lateral approximant than<br />
this brief description.<br />
As we saw, the term ‘lateral’ refers to the sides of the tongue, the opposite of this is,<br />
clearly, the centre of the tongue. Most sounds are ‘central’ in that the air passes over<br />
the centre of the tongue at some stage. Clearly, when an obstruent constriction<br />
occurs, then the air passes down the centre of the tongue until it encounters that<br />
constriction. However, we are talking here about sonorant sounds, where no such<br />
constriction occurs. If we reverse the tongue action of the lateral approximant, in<br />
other words, press the sides of the tongue against the back teeth and allow the air to<br />
pass over the centre of the tongue, whose tip is retracted towards the post-alveolar<br />
region (either retroflexed or not), we produce the standard British and American<br />
rhotic or central approximant []. Note, however, that some accents of English<br />
produce different types of /r/ sound. For example, in Scottish the standard /r/ is an<br />
alveolar tap []. Traditionally, the Scottish /r/ has been described as the trill [r], but<br />
this is unlikely to occur these days. It is also claimed that in some parts of<br />
Northumbria the /r/ is a uvular fricative [] – how common this sound is is not clear.<br />
In the so-called ‘rhotic’ dialects of English, there may also be a further variant on the<br />
standard /r/. This will also be discussed briefly later.<br />
Glides<br />
Strictly speaking, the sounds I shall call ‘glides’ are not consonantal articulations.<br />
That is to say that the air passes freely and there is no true constriction, even as severe<br />
as that involved in the lateral sounds (the status of the central rhotic approximant is<br />
also questionable when it comes to the possibility of its being a true consonant).<br />
Indeed their alternative names ‘semi-vowels’ is perhaps more truly descriptive.<br />
Glides [w] and [j] have more or less identical articulations to the high vowels [u] and<br />
[i] which we shall discuss next week. The descriptions of these sounds are:<br />
[w] labio-velar approximant. That is to say that the lips are rounded and the back<br />
of the tongue is raised towards the velum without contact being made<br />
[j] palatal approximant. Here the front part of the tongue is raised towards the<br />
hard palate.<br />
The reason I have included glides in the inventory of consonants is because of their<br />
distribution. They occur in contrast with true consonants – for example watt [wt]<br />
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