Completing the Inventory
- Affricates (2). The ch of church and j of judge. A stop released into a fricative at the same place, functioning as a single unit.
- Nasals (3). /m/, /n/, and the ng of sing. The sound ng never begins an English word.
- Approximants (4). /l/, /r/, /w/, /j/. The English approximant /r/ is cross-linguistically rare.
Allophonic Rules
Phonemes are realised differently depending on their environment. Five key rules cover English:
| Rule | Environment | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Aspiration | /p t k/ in a stressed onset | pin vs spin |
| Devoicing | /l r w j/ after a voiceless stop | play, try |
| Clear and dark /l/ | Clear before a vowel, dark elsewhere | leaf vs feel |
| Nasalisation | A vowel before a nasal | ban vs bad |
| Tapping | /t/ between vowels, second unstressed (General American) | butter, water |
Clear and dark /l/ changes tongue shape. Dark /l/ retracts the tongue body towards the velum.
Tapping neutralises the contrast between /t/ and /d/ in General American.
Common pitfall: thinking narrow transcription is more correct than broad. Broad records intended phonemes, while narrow records actual phonetic realisations.