Fricatives

Place of articulationalveolar palato- labio- dental glottal

alveolar dental

Voiceless, fortis s ʃ f θ h

Voiced, lenis z ʒ v ð

• Fortis fricatives are said to be articulated with greater force than the lenis ones and their friction noise is louder.

• Fortis fricatives have the effect of shortening the preceding vowel, as do fortis plosives.

• Lenis fricatives tend to be fully voiced only when they occur between voiced sounds

s and z

/s/ and /z/ are alveolar fricative consonants

The soft palate is raised and the nasal resonator is shut off. The tip and blade of the tongue make a light contact with the alveolar ridge. The side rims of the tongue are in a close contact with the upper side teeth forming a short and narrow channel, thus causing friction between the tongue and the alveolar ridge.

Comparison

• In Estonian /s/ and /z/ are articulated nearer to the teeth

• English /s/ is more energetic and /z/ is a voiced consonantsai sighsein sanesuu Suesöö sir

The pronunciation of dis and re+s

disappoint disasterdisappear diseasedisinherit dissolve

re-sent resentre-sign resign

/ s / / z /

ʃ and ʒ

• /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ palato-alveolar fricative consonants

• The place of articulation is partly palatal and partly alveolar. The tongue is in contact with the area slightly further back than that for /s/ and /z/

• The passage through which the air escapes is slightly wider. Lips are rounded

Spelling

/ʃ/• -sh shape, wash, • endings ti+vowel education, association• endings ci+vowel musician, physician• Less common: • ch machine, champagne

Michigan, Chicagos sure, insurance

/ʒ/• s before endings with u or i: measure,

vision• -ge endings in words of French origin:

beige, garage, rouge

She sells shells on the sea shore,The shells she sells are seashells I’m sure,For if she sells seashells on the seashore,Then I’m sure she sells seashore shells.

Affricates• ʧ and ʤ• Affricates begin as plosives and end as fricatives• They start with the closure and hold phase of /t/

and /d/ but instead of a rapid release with plosion and aspiration the tongue moves to the position of the fricatives /ʃ/ and /ʒ/

• So the plosive is followed immediately by fricative noise NB! we would not classify all sequences of plosive + fricative as affricates: e.g. k+f in the word breakfast is not an affricate.

• The plosive and fricative must be homorganic to be classified as affricates.

• ʧ and ʤ are palato-alveolar affricate consonants

• /ʧ/ is voiceless and fortis and /ʤ/ is voiced and lenis

Spelling

/ʧ/• all tch: match, stretch, wretched• all t+ure: future, nature, feature• most ch: chin, punch, such,

/ʤ/• all j: jam, job, major, BUT: Juan,

Mojave

• all dge: judge, budge, bridge, • some g before i: gin, imagine BUT: give

Practise the difference

CHIN GIN RICH RIDGECHEER JEER SEARCH SURGECHOKE JOKE H AGECHAIN JANE LARCH LARGE

Look out! He’s choking/joking.The audience cheered/jeered at her speech.It’s not a little fir tree, It’s a larch/large tree.What happened to your chin/gin