The consonant system of English

In phonology the basic method of establishing the phonemic status of a sound is the method of finding minimal pairs. The method consists in finding at least one pair of words which are different in respect of that sound: pit — bit. When two words are identical except for one sound which makes a contrast in the meaning of words, they are said to form a minimal pair. The minimal pair may be two words or two grammatical forms of a word: man — men, stick — sticks. Thus the function of phonology is to relate the phonetic events of speech to grammatical units operating at the morphological, lexical, syntactic and semantic levels of language.

We will now apply the method of minimal pairs to the consonants of English by substituting one sound for the other. In the initial position in a word we can get at least 16 English consonant phonemes in one sequence of sounds: [wit, bit, pit, fit, nit, lit, tit, dit, sit, zit, tfit, nt, /it, kit, git, hit]. By changing the sequences we can add the other five consonants to be expected in the initial position of an English word: [fin, 9in, d3in], [d3et, vet, jet, met], [sai, 9m, 5ai].

The medial and the final word positions can offer consonants which are not to be found word-initially: [1еЗэ, 1езэ], [sm, sm].

Such an analysis of the consonantal phonemes of English has given us a total of twenty-four phonemes, of which six are of restricted occurrence: /h, w, j, r/ can only be used word- or syllable-initially, /3, n/ — only in the medial or final positions.

Which features make the two consonants in each minimal pair different?

In case' of/pin - bin/ the opposition is obviously based on fortis (voice-less)-lenis (voiced) features, but the presence of aspiration in [p^hm] is a redundant feature which may be predicted by rule: voiceless oral stops /p, t, k/ are aspirated before a stressed vowel. The aspiration feature may turn to be very important for stressed syllable recognition, especially in a two-syllable word like [p^hapa] — [pap^ha], for instance.

Sounds are grouped into classes according to the features which are distinctive (relevant, phonemic) for the particular language. In English the following features are distinctive for consonants:

1) place of articulation: labial, labio-dental, dental, alveolar, palatal, velar, glottal;

2) type of obstruction and manner of the production of noise: plosive oral stop, fricative, affricate, approximant;

3) presence or absence of voice: voiced (lenis), voiceless (fortis);

4) position of the soft palate and the velum: oral, nasal.

In each minimal pair the opposition is based either on

• one distinctive feature (single opposition): [pit - bit]: voiceless (fortis) vs. voiced (lenis);

• two features (double opposition) [til - bil]: voiceless (fortis) vs. voiced (lenis) and alveolar vs. labial;

• more than two features (multiple): [f ll - bil]: voiceless (fortis) vs. voiced (lenis), labio-dental vs. (bi)labial, fricative vs. oral stop (plosive).

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