# English Consonants II: the Rest, and Allophony

Languages I · English Phonetics and Phonology · https://tryals.app/learn/languages-i/english-consonants-ii-the-rest-and-allophony

## 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.

## Practice questions

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

### 1. In General American, "latter" and "ladder" can be pronounced identically. What does this show about /t/ and /d/ in that environment?

A. General American has lost the voiceless phoneme /t/
B. Tapping is a speech error rather than a valid rule
C. The distinction is preserved by onset aspiration
D. The contrast between them is neutralised there

**Answer:** D. The contrast between them is neutralised there

**Why:** **Neutralisation.** The contrast is alive elsewhere in the accent, *tie* and *die* are distinct, and suspended between vowels when the second is unstressed. Neutralisation in a specific position is entirely normal cross-linguistically and says nothing about the accent's adequacy.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-ii-the-rest-and-allophony/in-general-american-latter-and-ladder-can-be-pronounced

### 2. Approximants are systematically voiced phonemes in English, yet in words like 'play' or 'try' they lose their voicing. What accounts for this change, and what does it reveal about speech production?

A. The voiceless stop replaces the approximant phoneme with an unvoiced counterpart
B. Coarticulation with a voiceless stop conditions a predictable phonetic variant
C. The cluster creates a new voiceless phoneme unique to complex onset positions
D. Voicing contrasts are neutralised across all consonant clusters in onset positions

**Answer:** B. Coarticulation with a voiceless stop conditions a predictable phonetic variant

**Why:** Allophonic devoicing is an automatic physical adjustment to neighbouring sounds, not a replacement of the underlying phoneme. Contrast neutralisation occurs in specific contexts like American tapping, not across every initial consonant sequence.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-ii-the-rest-and-allophony/approximants-are-systematically-voiced-phonemes-in-english-yet-in

### 3. English /r/ is unusual among the world's rhotics in being an approximant rather than a trill or tap.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** **True.** Trills and taps are far more common cross-linguistically, and the English approximant is comparatively rare. It is also why /r/ is among the hardest English sounds for learners whose own rhotic is a trill, the target is not a weaker version of what they already do.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-ii-the-rest-and-allophony/english-r-is-unusual-among-the-worlds-rhotics-in-being-an

### 4. Sort each English consonant by manner.

**Answer:**

- Affricate: The ch of church, The j of judge
- Nasal: /m/, The ng of sing
- Approximant: /w/, /l/

**Why:** These nine consonants complete the twenty-four. The ng sound is the distributionally strange one, it never begins a word, and /l/ is the one with the most audible allophonic variation, which the rest of the lesson is about.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-ii-the-rest-and-allophony/sort-each-english-consonant-by-manner

### 5. Which are true of the clear and dark realisations of /l/?

A. The clear one occurs before a vowel
B. In some accents the dark one has become a vowel with no tongue-tip contact
C. They contrast in English, distinguishing pairs of words
D. The dark one adds retraction of the tongue body towards the velum

**Answer:** A. The clear one occurs before a vowel; B. In some accents the dark one has become a vowel with no tongue-tip contact; D. The dark one adds retraction of the tongue body towards the velum

**Why:** The fourth would make them separate phonemes, and they are not: their distribution is fully predictable from position, which makes them allophones. The vocalisation in the second option is a sound change in progress and is now the majority pattern for many younger speakers of southern British English.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-ii-the-rest-and-allophony/which-are-true-of-the-clear-and-dark-realisations-of-l

### 6. How many approximants does English have?

**Answer:** 4

**Why:** **Four.** With 6 plosives, 9 fricatives, 2 affricates and 3 nasals, the four approximants complete the 24 consonants of the inventory, a total worth checking against yourself, since a missing manner class is the usual reason a student's count comes out at 22 or 23.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-ii-the-rest-and-allophony/how-many-approximants-does-english-have

### 7. Complete the account of English allophony.

**Answer:** The /l/ of leaf is **clear** and the /l/ of feel is **dark**. In General American, /t/ between vowels with the second unstressed is **tapped**, which **neutralises** the contrast with /d/ in that position.

**Why:** The final blank is the technical term worth having: a contrast is **neutralised** where it stops distinguishing words, rather than lost, because it survives everywhere else. *Tie* and *die* remain distinct in exactly the accent where *latter* and *ladder* do not.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-ii-the-rest-and-allophony/complete-the-account-of-english-allophony

### 8. Match each phoneme to a notable fact about it.

**Answer:**

- The ng of sing → Never begins an English word
- English /r/ → An approximant where most languages have a trill or tap
- The zh of measure → The rarest English consonant, largely from French loans
- The two th sounds → Among the rarest consonants in the world's languages

**Why:** These four are the marked members of the English inventory, and each is marked in a different way, distributionally restricted, typologically unusual, historically borrowed, or globally rare. They are also, unsurprisingly, the four that cause learners the most trouble.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-ii-the-rest-and-allophony/match-each-phoneme-to-a-notable-fact-about-it

### 9. A narrow phonetic transcription is more correct than a broad phonemic one.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** **False.** They answer different questions: broad records the phonemes intended, narrow records the realisations produced. A dictionary uses broad transcription because the allophonic detail is predictable from the rules and therefore not worth printing, including it would add length without adding information.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/languages-i/english-consonants-ii-the-rest-and-allophony/a-narrow-phonetic-transcription-is-more-correct-than-a-broad-phonemic