English Consonant System

The present essay focuses on the English consonant system, outlining its main features. A language is a comprehensive system in which all parts are in relation to one another. Therefore, the present analysis of the English consonants deals with only a fragment of a wider system, that is the English phonetic system. As the object of the survey was limited to the description of consonants according to three fundamental parameters, i.e. voicing, place of articulation and manner of articulation, other very important phenomena (as similitude, assimilation, elision, length and rhythm) have not been dealt with. The paper, after describing very briefly the human phonatory system and the English vowel system, focuses analytically on the various classes of consonants of the English language, i.e. plosives, fricatives, affricates, nasals, laterals and approximants. For each member of a class, a short description of how the sound is produced is offered together with some relevant examples.