Portal:Phonology/Segmentals

Vowels and consonants are called segmentals - individual sounds into which words can be segmented. Phonemes are general sound categories that are distinctive in the language; e.g., /b/ and /p/ are considered different sounds in English, since bat is a distinctly different word from pat.

1 Phonemes

1.1 Links / PDFs

• Minimal pairs page for English phonemes
• Pronunciation drills: Typical drills for teaching phonemes
• List of English phonemes for evaluation or self-evaluation
• Spelling-phoneme patterns

2 Consonants

2.1 Links / PDFs

• Overview of English consonant system
• Stop consonants
• /f/ and /v/
• sounds /θ/ & /ð/
• spelling patterns
• /l/ and /r/
• Alveolar /z/
• Palatal consonants
• Consonant clusters

3 Vowels

3.1 Links / PDFs

• Overview of vowel system
• Tense & lax /i/, /<small I</small /
• Lax vowel /æ/ cf. /ε/
• Long /ei/ & short /ε/
• Long & short /ou/, /υ/
• Tense & lax /u/
• Schwa and /ʌ/
• Tense and lax vowel alternations
• Comparison of American, UK, Australian vowels

4 Consonant - vowel interactions and morphology

Morphology refers to word formation, e.g., by means of prefixes and suffixes; these often involve pronunciation changes and variant forms, such as multiple pronunciations of -ed and plural -s.

• Vocalic /r/
• Consontant-vowel interactions
• Final consonants and syllabic consonants
• The -ed, -s, -es endings