Fricatives and Affricates: Articulatory Phonetics
Fricatives and Affricates: Parameters
Parameters
- Voice: voiceless, voiced
- POA: Dental, Alveolar, Post-alveolar, Glottal
- MOA:
- Degree of construction: fricative (vs. approximants vs. ‘stops’)
- Speed of release of the closure: affricate (vs. plosives)
- Laterality: median (vs. lateral) fricatives/affricates
- Tongue shape: grooved fricative/affricate vs. slit fricative/affricate
Fricatives are produced by forcing air through a narrow channel. This channel is made between the active and passive articulators drawn very close to each other.
Friction: turbulent airflow generated in and escaping through a narrow channel between articulators.
Affricates begin as plosives (initial obstruction to the airflow) but end as fricatives (narrow channel at release):
Plosive-like section = In both plosives and affricates, articulators make an initial firm contact.
Fricative-like section: In plosives, the AA moves away from the PA quickly (i.e. fast release), creating a wide gap in between.
In affricates, the AA moves away from the PA slowly (i.e. slow release) at the beginning. This creates a narrow channel where friction is produced.
Fricatives and affricates can be lateral, although in English they are all central (i.e. produced with median airflow).
Another articulatory MOA parameter is tongue shape and its auditory correlate of degree of sibilance. Based on this, we distinguish (grooved) sibilant from (slit) non-sibilant fricatives.
Non-sibilant Fricatives
In the production of non-alveolar English fricatives (/θ ð f v h/), the tongue shape is normally flat. The space between the articulators is a left-to-right gap (‘slit’).
Sibilant Fricatives
Yet in the production of alveolar (/s z/) and post-alveolar (/ʃ ʒ/) fricatives as well as post-alveolar affricates (/ʧ ʤ/), the tongue isn’t flat. The air flows through a relatively deep groove along the median line of the tongue blade.
One consequence of the groove on the tongue blade is that the airflow is directed over the edge of the upper or lower teeth.
When the (already turbulent) airflow in the groove hits the teeth, extra friction is produced.
The extra friction generated makes ‘grooved’ fricatives extra hissy (high-pitched) or sibilant (‘whistling’). Fricatives without the groove (or ‘slit’ fricatives) lack this extra friction and are described non-sibilant.
RP Fricatives and Affricates
RP has 9 fricatives + 2 affricates, which pattern in voiceless-voiced homorganic pairs. The exception is /h/.
- Dental /θ, ð/
- Labio-dental /f, v/
- Alveolar /s, z/
- Post-alveolar (fricative) /ʃ, ʒ/
- Post-alveolar (affricate) /ʧ, ʤ/
- Glottal /h/
The alveolar and postalveolar are sibilant. The non-alveolars are non-sibilant.
Glottals: /h/
voiceless glottal fricative (e.g. head /hed/, who /hu:/, ahead /əˈhed/)
Dentals: /θ, ð/
- /θ/ voiceless dental fricative (e.g. thing /θɪŋ/, Arthur /ˈɑ:θə/, cloth /klɒθ/).
- /ð/ voiced dental fricative (e.g. this /ðɪs/, other /ˈʌðə/, smooth /smu:ð/)
Labio-dentals: /f, v/
- /f/ voiceless labio-dental fricative (e.g. fetch /feʧ/, coffin /ˈkɒfɪn/, graph /grɑ:f/)
- /v/ voiced labio-dental fricative (e.g. vest /vest/, Stephen /ˈsti:vn/, of /ɒv/-/əv/)
Alveolars: /s, z/
- /s/ voiceless alveolar (sibilant) fricative (e.g. say /seɪ/, lesson /ˈlesn/, palace /ˈpælɪs/)
- /z/ voiced alveolar (sibilant) fricative (e.g. zoo /zu:/, exam /ɪgˈzæm/, please /pli:z/)
Post-alveolars (fricative): /ʃ, ʒ/
- /ʃ/ voiceless (labialised) post-alveolar (sibilant) fricative (e.g. shine /ʃaɪn/, action /ˈækʃn/, ancient /ˈeɪnʃnt/)
- /ʒ/ voiced (labialised) post-alveolar (sibilant) fricative (e.g. genre /ˈʒɑ:nrə/, treasure /ˈtreʒə/, beige /beɪʒ/)
Post-alveolars (affricate): /ʧ, ʤ/
- /ʧ/ voiceless (labialised) post-alveolar (sibilant) affricate (e.g. chain /ʧeɪn/, culture /ˈkʌlʧə/, Dutch /dʌʧ/)
- /ʤ/ voiced (labialised) post-alveolar (sibilant) affricate (e.g. jam /ʤæm/, fragile /ˈfræʤaɪl/, pledge /pleʤ/)
English Fricatives
Glottal /h/
It is the only phoneme in English with a glottal POA. However, English also has a voiceless glottal plosive (the ‘glottal stop’ [ʔ]), a very frequent realization of /t/.
- /h/ can only occur in syllable onsets, but never in the coda (e.g. /hi:/ but */i:h/).
- /h/ is sometimes a breathy voiced glottal fricative [ɦ] between vowels (e.g. ahead, behind). e.g. ahead /əˈhed/ [əˈɦɛd]
- Followed by /j/ (e.g. huge, human, etc.), /h/ is a voiceless palatal fricative (cf. German ich). e.g. human /ˈhjumən/ [ˈçu:mən]
- /h/ is elided by some speakers in content words (e.g. hat, here, etc.), a phenomenon known as h-dropping. Not in RP, though. e.g. Cockney ’ere (i.e. here)
Many speakers are sensitive about h-dropping and consider it to be vulgar. Yet all speakers ‘drop’ /h/ in unstressed, WFs of function words (he, him, have, etc).
Dental and Labio-dental /f,v/, /θ, ð/
- /θ/ is more frequent and has a wider distribution than /ð/ think, panther, bath
- /ð/ is typically found word-initially in English in function words (e.g. that, the, them, thus, etc.) as well as in a few adverbs (e.g. then, there, etc.).
- /ð/ is found word-medially (e.g. mother, whether, worthy) and word-finally typically in verbs ending in <-the> (e.g. breathe, bathe).
In some English accents /θ, ð/ are replaced by /f, v/ in content (but not function) words → th-fronting. Thus, free = three /fri:/, brother = ‘bruvver’ /ˈbrʌvə/
In some accents (e.g. Ireland, India..), /θ, ð/ are replaced by dental plosives /t, d/ → th-stopping.
Thus, tin ≠ thin, den ≠ then
Alveolar /s,z/ and Post-alveolar /ʃ, ʒ/
- /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ typically involve labialisation (a secondary POA). They are thus labialised post-alveolar (i.e. [ʃʷ ʒʷ]). Actually, all English post-alveolars are labialised, including affricates /ʧ, ʤ/ and approximant /r/.
- /s, z, ʃ/ are common and they have a wide distribution.
- /ʒ/ is uncommon and restricted in its distribution.
- /ʒ/ occurs mainly word-internally, most notably in word ending in –(V)sual (e.g. usual, casual), -(V)sion (e.g. vision, occasion), and –(V)sure (e.g. pleasure, treasure).
- Word-initial and word-finally, /ʒ/ occurs in loanwords (e.g. beige). In many cases, there are variants with /ʤ/.
English Affricates /ʧ/ and /ʤ/
There are only 2 affricates in English: /ʧ/ (e.g. chain) and /ʤ/ (e.g. drain). Both are labialised and sibilant.
Affricates are not in a separate row in the main IPA chart. Instead, they can be symbolized using ligatures or independent symbols joined by a tie bar (to show they are single phonemes).
Some authors have talked about two further affricates, namely /tr/ (e.g. try) and /dr/ (e.g. dry). We have to distinguish affricates (and single phonemes) from affricated clusters (combinations of two phonemes with some friction at a later stage).
Homorganic
/t, d/ alveolar and /r/ post-alveolar
However, the tongue tip for /t, d/ in /tr, dr/ touches the back of the alveolar ridge so the whole cluster has a more retracted (i.e. post-alveolar) POA.
Plosive+fricative stages?
Affricates start as plosives and end as fricatives.
/t/ is a plosive. Yet /r/ is an approximant.
Since /r/ after /t, d/ has a more raised articulation (i.e. the AA is nearer to the roof of the mouth than usual for /r/), /r/ after /t, d/ involves friction and is thus a fricative allophone of /r/.
Two conditions for a consonant to be an affricate:
- Plosive and fricative stages must be homorganic
- This rules out many clusters (e.g. /kf/ in breakfast, /ps/ in caps, etc.), but not alveolar /ts, dz/ in its, ads or post-alveolar /tr, dr/ in try, dry
- It is got to be perceived as a single segment, not as two
- Alveolar /ts, dz/ and post-alveolar /tr, dr/ are sequences of two phonemes (unlike /ʧ, /ʤ/). They are affricated consonant clusters, but not affricate phonemes.
/tr, dr/ seem to meet the first condition but not the second
English and Spanish Fricatives/Affricates
Castilian Spanish has 4 voiceless fricatives and one affricate, but no voiced fricatives/affricates.
- Labiodental /f/ (feria)
- Dental /θ/ (cien)
- Alveolar /s/ (sol)
- Velar /x/ (gen)
- Post-alveolar /ʧ/ (chal)
Spanish /ʧ/ is not labialised (cf. ficha /ˈfiʧa/ [ˈfiʧa] and feature /ˈfi:ʧə/ [ˈfiˑʧʷə])
/x/ is a marginal phoneme of English! (found when foreign pronunciations are imitated as in loch /lɒx/ or /lɒk/, Bach /bɑ:k/ or /bɑ:x/).
In other Spanish accents the fricative inventory may vary.