[英语学习]Consonants.pptVIP

2. Passive Active Articulators The fixed organs of speech are passive articulators, because they can not move. The movable organs of speech are active articulators because they can move. The active articulators are: the vocal cords; the soft palate; the tongue; the lips. The passive articulators are: the upper jaw; the hard palate; the teeth-ridge; the upper teeth. 3. Larynx and Pharynx 4. Phonemes and Allophones Many Linguists agree that English has 20 vowels and 24 consonants. But in fact each of these can be pronounced in many slightly different ways, so that the total number of sounds actually produced in speech is practically endless. For example: 1. /{/ in at is short, and the /{/ in add is long, and the /{/ in can is nasalized, etc. 2. the /l/ in let is clear, and the /l/ in tell, told and always is dark, the /l/ in please is voiceless, etc. 3. the /k/ in key, kiss is advanced, the /k/ in cop, cook is retracted and the /k/ in cup, curl is normal, neither advanced, nor retracted. The native speakers customarily divided all those slightly different sounds they could possibly produce into a definite number of groups. Only those “sounds” which serve to distinguish one word from another are regarded as belonging to different groups, or to different phonemes. Phonemes are distinctive(有区别性的) and contrastive(对比的). Phoneme is the smallest contrastive linguistic unit which may bring about a change of meaning. The /{/ sounds, the /l/ sounds and the /k/ sounds mentioned above are called allophones of the phonemes /{/, /l/ and /k/ respectively. Phonemes: Vowels Consonants The symbols used to represent phonemes are phonemic symbols, which are put in slant bars / / instead of square brackets [ ]. There are 44 basic phonemes in English. They are divided into 20 vowels and 24 consonants. Vowels are sounds produced without obstruction of the air passage in the mouth but with the vibration of the vocal cords. So all the vowels are voiced. Con