The problem of affricates

The English Consonant System

The English consonant system consists of 24 consonants (see Table 4), forming oppositions based upon the following principles:

1. The manner of articulation (stops and constrictives).

2. The articulating organ (labial, lingual).

3. The passive speech organ (dental, alveolar, palatal, velar).

4. The shape of the narrowing (a narrow slit or round aperture).

5. The presence or absence of voice (voiced and voiceless).

6. The prevalence of noise or musical tone (voiced noises and sonorants).

7. The kind of resonance (oral and nasal).

8. One or two noise-producing obstacles (single point and double-point consonants).

9. The manner of releasing closure (plosives and affricates).

Pairs of voiced and voiceless consonants are frequently met with in alternations:

1) having grammatical or lexical functions.

t - d as in send [send] — sent [sent]

t - d || id as in stopped, begged, wanted

s z || iz as in caps, boys, boxes

2) Consonant alternations of various kinds are used in word formation, in compound words, in distinguishing different parts of speech, in forming the plural of nouns, etc.

k || tò to speak — speech

s || z use — to use

f || v life (n) — live (a)

f || vz life – lives

s || d defence — to defend

Not all the consonants occur in any accidental position; some of them are limited by certain definite conditions. Thus, the phonemes /w/, /r/, /g/, /j/ are used only at the beginning of a syllable, while the /h/-phoneme occurs only at the end of a syllable. /T/ and /D/ do not form very regular oppositions in words, yet their phonemic function is based upon their grammatical and lexical functions. Thus, the /q/-phoneme is used as the suffix of ordinals, e. g. the fif th, the seven th.

e.g. /T/ and /D/: bath – baths, a mouth — to mouth.

/w/, /j/, /h/, /1/ and the nasals do not take part in alternations. The /r/-phoneme can form alternations with zero sound. (E. g. there [DE@] but there it is ['DE@r it 'iz]).

The Russian consonant system is different in more than one respect. It contains 35 consonants which form oppositions according to all 9 English principles + the presence or absence of palatalization.

Table 4

Active organ, place of obst­ruction Type of obstruction, a manner of the production of noise	Labial	Lingual	Pharyngal
Forelingual	Medio-lingual	Back-lingual
Bi­labial	Labio-dental	Inter-dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Occlusives	Plosives	p, b			t, d				k, g
Nasal sonants	m			n				N
Constrictives	Fricatives		f, v	T, D	s, z		S, Z			h
Sonants	w			l	r		j
Affricates							tS, dZ

There are some problems of phonological character in the English consonantal system: it is the problem of affricates - their phonological status and their number. The question is what kind of facts a phonological theory has to explain.

1) Are the English [t∫, ʤ]sounds monophonemic entities or biphonemic combinations?

2) If they are monophonemic, how many phonemes of the same kind exist in English, or, in other words, can such clusters as [tr, dr] and [tθ, dð] be considered affricates?

To define it is not an easy matter. One thing is clear: these sounds are complexes because articulatory we can distinguish two elements. Considering phonemic duality of affricates, it is necessary to analyze the relation of affricates to other consonant phonemes to be able to define their status in the system.

The problem of affricates is a point of considerable controversy among phoneticians. According to Russian specialists in English phonetics, there are two affricates in English: [t∫, ʤ]. D. Jones points out there are six of them: [t∫, ʤ], [ts, dz], and [tr, dr]. A.C. Gimson increases their number adding two more affricates: [tθ, tð]. Russian phoneticians look at English affricates through the eyes of a phoneme theory, according to which a phoneme has three aspects: articulatory, acoustic and functional, the latter being the most significant one. As to British phoneticians, their primary concern is the articulatory-acoustic unity of these complexes.

Before looking at these complexes from a functional point of view it is necessary to define their articulatory indivisibility.

According to N.S. Trubetzkoy's point of view a sound complex may be considered monophonemic if: a) its elements belong to the same syllable; b) it is produced by one articulatory effort; c) its duration should not exceed normal duration of elements. Let us apply these criteria to the sound complexes.

1. Syllabic indivisibility

butcher [but∫-ə] lightship [lait-∫ip]

mattress [mætr-is] footrest [fut-rest]

curtsey [kз:-tsi] out-set [aut-set]

eighth [eitθ] whitethorn [wait-θo:n]

In the words in the left column the sounds [t∫], [tr], [ts], [tθ] belong to one syllable and cannot be divided into two elements by a syllable dividing line.

2. Articulatory indivisibility. Special instrumental analysis shows that all the sound complexes are homogeneous and produced by one articulatory effort.

3. Duration. With G.P. Torsuyev we could state that length of sounds depends on the position in the phonetic context, therefore it cannot serve a reliable basis in phonological analysis. He writes that the length of English [t∫] in the words chair and match is different; [t∫] in match is considerably longer than |t| in mat and may be even longer than [∫] in mash. This does not prove, however, that [t∫] is biphonemic.

According to morphological criterion a sound complex is considered to be monophonemic if a morpheme boundary cannot pass within it because it is generally assumed that a phoneme is morphologically indivisible. If we consider [t∫], [ʤ] from this point of view we could be secure to grant them a monophonemic status, since they are indispensable. As to [ts], [dz] and [tθ], [dð] complexes their last elements are separate morphemes [s], [z], [θ], [ð] so these elements are easily singled out by the native speaker in any kind of phonetic context. These complexes do not correspond to the phonological models of the English language and cannot exist in the system of phonemes. The case with [tr], [dr] complexes is still more difficult.

By way of conclusion we could say that the two approaches have been adopted towards this phenomenon are as follows: the finding that there are eight affricates in English [t∫], [ʤ], [tr], [dr], [ts], [dz], [tð], [dθ] is consistent with articulatory and acoustic point of view, because in this respect the entities are indivisible. This is the way the British phoneticians see the situation. On the other hand, Russian phoneticians are consistent in looking at the phenomenon from the morphological and the phonological point of view which allows them to define [t∫], [ʤ] as monophonemic units and [tr], [dr], [ts], [dz], [tð], [dθ] as biphonemic complexes. However, this point of view reveals the possibility of ignoring the articulatory and acoustic indivisibility.

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