The English alphabets VS the English sounds/phonemes
• The English alphabets are different from the English sounds.
• There are 26 English alphabets.
• There are 44 English sounds/phonemes.
• Most times, learners of English as a second or foreign language
confuse alphabets with sounds.
• There are cases where a sound looks like an alphabet, for instance,
alphabets p, t, k, g can appear as sounds or phonemes /p/, /t/, /k/,
/g/.
• Some English alphabets cannot be used to represent English sounds,
for instance, alphabets - c, o, q, x and y.
The 44 sounds of English
Consonants
• There are 24 consonants of English
The 24 Consonants of English
1. /p/ - pepper, tap, pray
2. /b/ - baby, ebb, absorb
3. /t/ - turtle, train, hurt
4. /d/ - daily, ladder, done
5. /k/ - choir, account, basket
6. /g/ - gear, guest, gather
7. /f/ - rough, physical, first
8. /v/ - vehicle, serve, voice
9. /Ɵ/ - bath, cloth, thorn
10. /ð/ - bathe, clothe, this
11. /s/ - sell, psyche, loose
12. /ʃ/ - ocean, champagne, machine
The 24 Consonants of English
13. /z/ - zeal, rise, lose
14. /Ʒ/ - vision, casual, genre
15. /h/ - health, who, hand
16. /ʧ/ - nature, choice, champion
17. /ʤ/ - joy, giant, soldier
18. /m/ - men, sermon, solemn
19. /n/ - nice, kneel, assign
20. /ŋ/ - king, anger, long
21. /l/ - lesson, alight, soil
22. /r/ - rent, wreck, salary
23. /w/ - win, Queen, weather
24. /j/ - yet, youth, Europe
The 20 English Vowels
The English Vowels
There are 20 vowels in English. They are in 2 categories.
1. Monophthongs or Pure vowels (12)
There are 7 short vowels: /æ/, /e/, /i/, /u/, /ə/, /Λ/, /ɒ/ or /ɔ/
There are 5 long vowels: /a:/, /ɜ:/, /i:/, /ɔ:/, /u:/
2. Diphthongs (8)
There are 5 centring diphthongs - /aI/, /eI/, /ɔI/, /au/, /əu/
There are 3 closing diphthongs - /Iə/, /eə/, /uə/
The English Vowels
The English Pure Vowels/Monophthongs
The English Pure Vowels/Monophthongs
1. /æ/ - cat, fat, match
2. /a:/ - cart, fart, march
3. /e/ - get, bed, wed
4. /ɜ:/ - church, bird, word
5. /I/ - sit, fit, kick
6. /i:/ - seat, feet, quay
7. /u/ - book, full, could
8. /u:/ - blue, fool, cool
9. /ɔ/ or /ɒ/ - cough, wasp, top
10. /ɔ:/ - court, Lord, dawn
11. /Λ/ - love, but, son
12. /ə/ - paper, again, pastor
The English Diphthongs
The English Diphthongs
1. /aI/ - sky, write, fight
2. /eI/ - faith, reign, estate
3. /ɔI/ - soil, rejoice, enjoy
4. /au/ - shout, allow, endow
5. /əu/ - soul, although, know
6. /Iə/ - fear, dear, bear
7. /eə/ - fair, dare, bare
8. /uə/ - poor, sure, tour
Silent Segments
1. Silent ‘w’ - wrap, answer, playwright, sword
2. Silent ‘t’ - soften, rapport, mortgage, Newcastle, debut
3. Silent ‘n’ - condemn, solemn, hymn
4. Silent ‘l’ - palm, calm, half, should
5. Silent ‘k’ - knot, knowledge, knife
6. Silent ‘h’ - vehicle, honest, heir, honour
7. Silent ‘g’ - design, gnash, campaign, foreign
8. Silent ‘d’ - knowledge, sandwich, handkerchief
9. Silent ‘b’ - bomb, doubt, plumber, debtor, subtle
10. Silent ‘p’ - pneumonia, psychology, psalm
11. Others - marriage, receipt, fracas, debris, Wednesday /wenzdei/
THE ENGLISH STRESS
➢Prominence is a natural phenomenon in human communication.
➢Stress also refers to prominence. It is the degree of force assigned to a syllable.
➢In all bi-syllablic and polysyllabic words, prominence/stress is usually assigned to a syllable
while others are usually unstressed. For instance, IN-terest-ing, ex-tra-OR-di-na-ry
MONOSYLLABIC WORDS
Monosyllabic words may be stressed wherever they appear in sentences. For instance,
grace, laugh, stopped, etc.
➢Content/Lexical words (noun, verb, adverb, adjective) are usually stressed.
➢Function/Grammatical words (pronoun, conjunction, interjection, preposition, article) are
not usually stressed except when the speaker makes emphasis on them. For instance,
Nadia MUST come to class.
BI-SYLLABIC WORDS
LONdon, QUESTion, ANSWer, HUSband, reLATE, maCHINE, aGREE,
enJOY, etc.
TRISYLLABIC WORDS
INgredient, PERSonal, abSORBer, hoRIzon, QUANtity, unCERtain,
BAchelor, CRIticise, SAtisfy, etc.
POLYSYLLABIC WORDS
coMMUnicate, auTHENticate, eXEMplify, NAtionalism, unFORtunate,
congreGAtion, interNAtional, etc.
➢CONTRASTIVE STRESS – shift in stress from one syllable to another as a result of
change in word class.
Noun Verb Adjective Verb
EXcuse exCUSE PERfect perFECT
CONtact conTACT FREquent freQUENT
CHAllenge chaLLENGE ABsent abSENT
REfuse reFUSE PREsent preSENT
REbel reBEL
OBject obJECT
CONduct conDUCT
CONvert conVERT
WRONG STRESS PLACEMENT RIGHT STRESS PLACEMENT
urBAN URban
INcorrigible inCORrigible
teRRORism TErrorism
coLLEAGUE COLleague
faCULty FAculty
Estate esTATE
civiLISE CIvilise
SUccess suCCESS
chaOS CHAos
CAssette caSSETTE
Adjacent aDJAcent
veGEtable VEGEtable
maDAM Madam
heLEN HELen
Phonetics Versus Phonology
• Both depend on each other because without the production of sounds there would be no
words, but without the rules to put them together, sounds would have no meaning. They work
together in important ways, but both cover their own specific part of language production.
PHONETICS PHONOLOGY
1. It is the study of the physical properties It studies sound patterning.
of speech sounds.
2. It is the scientific study of sounds. It studies the rules governing the
combination of sounds.
3. It relates to the description of speech It studies how those sounds are put together
sounds to create meaning.
4. It is generic/general and applies to all It applies to specific languages, e.g. Spanish
language. phonology, English phonology, German
phonology, Zulu phonology, Igbo phonology,
Yorba phonology, etc.
