# English Consonants I: Plosives and Fricatives

Languages I · English Phonetics and Phonology · https://tryals.app/learn/languages-i/english-consonants-i-plosives-and-fricatives

## Six Plosives

English has three pairs of plosives: /p b/, /t d/, and /k g/.

A plosive has three phases:
- **closure** (no air escapes)
- **hold**
- **release** (the burst)

What distinguishes /p/ from /b/ in English is chiefly **when voicing begins relative to the release**.

- In a stressed onset, /p t k/ are **aspirated**. A delay of 40 to 80 ms occurs before voicing starts (*pin*).
- After /s/, they are **unaspirated** (*spin*). English speakers hear a /p/, but Spanish speakers may hear it as /b/.
- Word-finally, plosives are often **unreleased**.
- Final /t/ is frequently **glottalised** at the vocal folds.

## Nine Fricatives

| Place | Voiceless | Voiced |
|---|---|---|
| Labiodental | /f/ | /v/ |
| Dental | *thin* | *this* |
| Alveolar | /s/ | /z/ |
| Postalveolar | *ship* | *measure* |
| Glottal | /h/ | |

- **The sibilants** (/s z/ and *ship*/*measure*) are much louder, with high-frequency energy. They carry English plural and possessive endings.
- **The dental fricatives** are cross-linguistically rare and late-acquired.

> **Common pitfall:** describing English /b d g/ as purely "voiced". Initially, they lack vocal fold vibration during closure. They are distinguished from /p t k/ by lacking aspiration.

## Practice questions

9 of this lesson's 13 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. A Spanish speaker hears the second consonant of English "spin" as closer to their own /b/ than to their /p/. Why?

A. English /p/ is unaspirated here; Spanish has less aspiration and draws voicing boundaries differently
B. English phonology neutralises the contrast after /s/, substituting a fully voiced bilabial plosive /b/
C. The preceding alveolar fricative causes regressive voicing assimilation, turning voiceless /p/ voiced
D. Spanish phonotactic constraints ban voiceless plosives in onset clusters, forcing listeners to hear /b/

**Answer:** A. English /p/ is unaspirated here; Spanish has less aspiration and draws voicing boundaries differently

**Why:** Because the English plosive after /s/ has a **short-lag VOT**, which falls on the /b/ side of where a Spanish listener divides the continuum. The sounds are what they are; the categories differ. This is the clearest everyday demonstration that phoneme boundaries are properties of a language rather than of acoustics.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-i-plosives-and-fricatives/a-spanish-speaker-hears-the-second-consonant-of-english-spin-as

### 2. Aspiration of /p t k/ in English is fully predictable from position and is not noticed by native speakers.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** **True**, and both halves matter. It is predictable — aspirated in a stressed onset, unaspirated after /s/ — which makes it allophonic; and it is below awareness, which is what being allophonic feels like from the inside. Speakers of Thai or Hindi, where the difference is contrastive, notice it at once.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-i-plosives-and-fricatives/aspiration-of-p-t-k-in-english-is-fully-predictable-from-position

### 3. How many plosive phonemes does English have?

**Answer:** 6

**Why:** **Six**: /p b/, /t d/, /k g/. Three places with a two-way contrast at each is a common and economical pattern, many languages have exactly this, and languages with four-way contrasts at each place, such as Hindi, are the ones that make English look sparse.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-i-plosives-and-fricatives/how-many-plosive-phonemes-does-english-have

### 4. Which are true of the sibilants of English?

A. They carry the plural, possessive and third-person endings
B. They are the most cross-linguistically rare fricatives in the language
C. They have energy concentrated at high frequencies
D. They are louder than the other fricatives

**Answer:** A. They carry the plural, possessive and third-person endings; C. They have energy concentrated at high frequencies; D. They are louder than the other fricatives

**Why:** The rarity belongs to the dental fricatives, not the sibilants, /s/ is one of the most widespread consonants in the world. The connection between loudness and grammatical function in the first option is worth pausing on: an ending that must survive being unstressed and rushed is better carried by a loud sound.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-i-plosives-and-fricatives/which-are-true-of-the-sibilants-of-english

### 5. Sort each realisation of /t/ by the environment that conditions it.

**Answer:**

- Stressed syllable onset: Aspirated (tin), Long-lag voice onset
- After /s/: Unaspirated (stin), Short-lag voice onset
- Word-final: Often unreleased (cat), Glottalised in accents (that)

**Why:** One phoneme, at least four realisations, all predictable from position, which is exactly what an allophone is. The pairing of the articulatory description with the acoustic one, in the last two items, is worth noting: aspiration and long-lag VOT are the same fact described from two directions.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-i-plosives-and-fricatives/sort-each-realisation-of-t-by-the-environment-that-conditions-it

### 6. Complete the account of English plosives.

**Answer:** In a stressed onset, /p t k/ are **aspirated**, with a voice onset time of 40 to 80 milliseconds. After **/s/** in the same syllable they are not. Word-finally they are frequently **unreleased**, and in many accents /t/ is **glottalised** instead.

**Why:** The four blanks are the allophonic rule for English plosives in full. Note it is stated entirely in terms of position — no reference to meaning, speaker or care — which is what makes it a phonological rule rather than a stylistic observation.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-i-plosives-and-fricatives/complete-the-account-of-english-plosives

### 7. English plosive contrasts are often described as voiced versus voiceless, yet initial /b d g/ typically lack vocal fold vibration during closure. What actually maintains the perceptual contrast in initial position?

A. A change in the anatomical place where the closure is formed by lips
B. The total duration of the closure phase before release takes place
C. The complete absence of vocal fold vibration across the whole word
D. A difference in the timing of voicing onset relative to the burst

**Answer:** D. A difference in the timing of voicing onset relative to the burst

**Why:** English lenis plosives rely on an immediate onset of voicing after the release rather than true closure voicing. Aspiration creates a noticeable delay (VOT) in fortis stops, meaning listeners attend to release timing rather than closure duration or place shifts across pairs.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-i-plosives-and-fricatives/english-plosive-contrasts-are-often-described-as-voiced-versus

### 8. Match each phase or property of a plosive to its description.

**Answer:**

- Closure → The articulators come together and airflow stops
- Hold → Pressure builds behind the closure
- Release → The burst as the closure is broken
- Voice onset time → The interval from release to the start of voicing

**Why:** Setting the phases out in order makes VOT easy to place: it is measured from the release, so an aspirated stop is one where voicing has not yet begun when the burst happens. Everything in the lesson follows from that one measurement.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-i-plosives-and-fricatives/match-each-phase-or-property-of-a-plosive-to-its-description

### 9. The zh sound of "measure" is one of the most frequent consonants in English.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** **False**: it is by some distance the rarest English consonant. It entered mainly through French borrowings, occurs in no native word in initial position, and is the least integrated member of the inventory, which is why some analyses hesitate over its phonemic status at all.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-i-plosives-and-fricatives/the-zh-sound-of-measure-is-one-of-the-most-frequent-consonants-in