pronounced as /notice/English phonology is the system of speech sounds used in spoken English. Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar (but not identical) phonological system. Among other things, most dialects have vowel reduction in unstressed syllables and a complex set of phonological features that distinguish fortis and lenis consonants (stops, affricates, and fricatives).
Phonological analysis of English often concentrates on prestige or standard accents, such as Received Pronunciation for England, General American for the United States, and General Australian for Australia. Nevertheless, many other dialects of English are spoken, which have developed differently from these standardized accents, particularly regional dialects. Descriptions of standardized reference accents provide only a limited guide to the phonology of other dialects of English.
A phoneme of a language or dialect is an abstraction of a speech sound or of a group of different sounds that are all perceived to have the same function by speakers of that particular language or dialect. For example, the English word through consists of three phonemes: the initial "th" sound, the "r" sound, and a vowel sound. The phonemes in that and many other English words do not always correspond directly to the letters used to spell them (English orthography is not as strongly phonemic as that of many other languages).
The number and distribution of phonemes in English vary from dialect to dialect, and also depend on the interpretation of the individual researcher. The number of consonant phonemes is generally put at 24 (or slightly more depending on the dialect). The number of vowels is subject to greater variation; in the system presented on this page there are 20–25 vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation, 14–16 in General American and 19–21 in Australian English. The pronunciation keys used in dictionaries generally contain a slightly greater number of symbols than this, to take account of certain sounds used in foreign words and certain noticeable distinctions that may not be—strictly speaking—phonemic.
The following table shows the 24 consonant phonemes found in most dialects of English, plus pronounced as //x//, whose distribution is more limited. Fortis consonants are always voiceless, aspirated in syllable onset (except in clusters beginning with pronounced as //s// or pronounced as //ʃ//), and sometimes also glottalized to an extent in syllable coda (most likely to occur with pronounced as //t//, see T-glottalization), while lenis consonants are always unaspirated and un-glottalized, and generally partially or fully voiced. The alveolars are usually apical, i.e. pronounced with the tip of the tongue touching or approaching the roof of the mouth, though some speakers produce them laminally, i.e. with the blade of the tongue.
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Plosive | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | w | ||||
The following table shows typical examples of the occurrence of the above consonant phonemes in words, using minimal pairs where possible.
| Fortis | Lenis | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pronounced as /link/ | pit | pronounced as /link/ | bit | |
| pronounced as /link/ | tin | pronounced as /link/ | din | |
| pronounced as /link/ | cut | pronounced as /link/ | gut | |
| pronounced as /link/ | cheap | pronounced as /link/ | jeep | |
| pronounced as /link/ | fat | pronounced as /link/ | vat | |
| pronounced as /link/ | thigh | pronounced as /link/ | thy | |
| pronounced as /link/ | sap | pronounced as /link/ | zap | |
| pronounced as /link/ | shin / dilution | pronounced as /link/ | delusion | |
| pronounced as /link/ | loch | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | ham | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | hum | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | Hun | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | hung | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | your | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | wore | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | rump | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | lump | |||
In most dialects, the fortis stops and affricate pronounced as //p, t, tʃ, k// have various different allophones, and are distinguished from the lenis stops and affricate pronounced as //b, d, dʒ, ɡ// by several phonetic features.
English, much like other Germanic languages, has a particularly large number of vowel phonemes, and in addition the vowels of English differ considerably between dialects. Consequently, corresponding vowels may be transcribed with various symbols depending on the dialect under consideration. When considering English as a whole, lexical sets are often used, each named by a word containing the vowel or vowels in question. For example, the set consists of words which, like lot, have pronounced as //ɒ// in Received Pronunciation and pronounced as //ɑ// in General American. The " vowel" then refers to the vowel that appears in those words in whichever dialect is being considered, or (at a greater level of abstraction) to a diaphoneme, which represents this interdialectal correspondence. A commonly-used system of lexical sets, devised by John C. Wells, is presented below; for each set, the corresponding phonemes are given for RP and General American, using the notation that will be used on this page.
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| pronounced as /link/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| pronounced as /link/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | |||
| pronounced as /eɪ/ | |||
| pronounced as /əʊ/ | pronounced as /oʊ/ | ||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| pronounced as /aɪ/ | |||
| pronounced as /ɔɪ/ | |||
| pronounced as /aʊ/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /ɜr/ | ||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /ɑr/ | ||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /ɔr/ | ||
| pronounced as /ɔr/, pronounced as /oʊr/ | |||
| pronounced as /ɪə/ | pronounced as /ɪr/ | ||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /ɛr/ | ||
| pronounced as /ʊə/, pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /ʊr/ |
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| pronounced as /ər/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | |||
For a table that shows the pronunciations of these vowels in a wider range of English dialects, see IPA chart for English dialects.
The following tables show the vowel phonemes of three standard varieties of English. The notation system used here for Received Pronunciation (RP) is fairly standard; the others less so. The feature descriptions given here (front, close, etc.) are abstracted somewhat; the actual pronunciations of these vowels are somewhat more accurately conveyed by the IPA symbols used (see Vowel for a chart indicating the meanings of these symbols; though note also the points listed below the following tables). The symbols given in the table are traditional but redirect to their modern implementation.
| Front | Central | Back | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Open | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
| Diphthongs | pronounced as /eɪ aɪ ɔɪ aʊ əʊ ɪə ʊə/ | ||||||||
| Triphthongs | (pronounced as /eɪə aɪə ɔɪə aʊə əʊə/) | ||||||||
| Front | Central | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Open | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | ||||
| Diphthongs | pronounced as /aɪ ɔɪ aʊ/ | ||||||
| Front | Central | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Open | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Diphthongs | pronounced as /æɪ ɑɪ oɪ æɔ əʉ ɪə (ʊə)/ | ||||||
The differences between these tables can be explained as follows:
Other points to be noted are these:
Listed here are some of the significant cases of allophony of vowels found within standard English dialects.
Unstressed syllables in English may contain almost any vowel, but in practice vowels in stressed and unstressed syllables tend to use different inventories of phonemes. In particular, long vowels are used less often in unstressed syllables than stressed syllables. Additionally there are certain sounds—characterized by central position and weakness—that are particularly often found as the nuclei of unstressed syllables. These include:
Vowel reduction in unstressed syllables is a significant feature of English. Syllables of the types listed above often correspond to a syllable containing a different vowel ("full vowel") used in other forms of the same morpheme where that syllable is stressed. For example, the first o in photograph, being stressed, is pronounced with the vowel, but in photography, where it is unstressed, it is reduced to schwa. Also, certain common words (a, an, of, for, etc.) are pronounced with a schwa when they are unstressed, although they have different vowels when they are in a stressed position (see Weak and strong forms in English).
Some unstressed syllables, however, retain full (unreduced) vowels, i.e. vowels other than those listed above. Examples are the pronounced as //æ// in ambition and the pronounced as //aɪ// in finite. Some phonologists regard such syllables as not being fully unstressed (they may describe them as having tertiary stress); some dictionaries have marked such syllables as having secondary stress. However linguists such as Ladefoged and regard this as a difference purely of vowel quality and not of stress, and thus argue that vowel reduction itself is phonemic in English. Examples of words where vowel reduction seems to be distinctive for some speakers include chickaree vs. chicory (the latter has the reduced vowel of, whereas the former has the vowel without reduction), and Pharaoh vs. farrow (both have the vowel, but in the latter word it may reduce to pronounced as /[ɵ]/).
See main article: Stress and vowel reduction in English. Lexical stress is phonemic in English. For example, the noun increase and the verb increase are distinguished by the positioning of the stress on the first syllable in the former, and on the second syllable in the latter. (See initial-stress-derived noun.) Stressed syllables in English are louder than non-stressed syllables, as well as being longer and having a higher pitch.
In traditional approaches, in any English word consisting of more than one syllable, each syllable is ascribed one of three degrees of stress: primary, secondary or unstressed. Ordinarily, in each such word there will be exactly one syllable with primary stress, possibly one syllable having secondary stress, and the remainder are unstressed (unusually-long words may have multiple syllables with secondary stress). For example, the word amazing has primary stress on the second syllable, while the first and third syllables are unstressed, whereas the word organization has primary stress on the fourth syllable, secondary stress on the first, and the second, third, and fifth unstressed. This is often shown in pronunciation keys using the IPA symbols for primary and secondary stress (which are ˈ and ˌ respectively), placed before the syllables to which they apply. The two words just given may therefore be represented (in RP) as pronounced as //əˈmeɪzɪŋ// and pronounced as //ˌɔːɡənaɪˈzeɪʃən//.
Some analysts identify an additional level of stress (tertiary stress). This is generally ascribed to syllables that are pronounced with less force than those with secondary stress, but nonetheless contain a "full" or "unreduced" vowel (vowels that are considered to be reduced are listed under above). Hence the third syllable of organization, if pronounced with pronounced as //aɪ// as shown above (rather than being reduced to pronounced as //ɪ// or pronounced as //ə//), might be said to have tertiary stress. (The precise identification of secondary and tertiary stress differs between analyses; dictionaries do not generally show tertiary stress, although some have taken the approach of marking all syllables with unreduced vowels as having at least secondary stress.)
In some analyses, then, the concept of lexical stress may become conflated with that of vowel reduction. An approach that attempts to separate both is provided by Peter Ladefoged, who states that it is possible to describe English with only one degree of stress, as long as unstressed syllables are phonemically distinguished for vowel reduction. In this approach, the distinction between primary and secondary stress is regarded as a phonetic or prosodic detail rather than a phonemic feature – primary stress is seen as an example of the predictable "tonic" stress that falls on the final stressed syllable of a prosodic unit. For more details of this analysis, see Stress and vowel reduction in English.
For stress as a prosodic feature (emphasis of particular words within utterances), see below.
Phonotactics is the study of the sequences of phonemes that occur in languages and the sound structures that they form. In this study it is usual to represent consonants in general with the letter C and vowels with the letter V, so that a syllable such as 'be' is described as having CV structure. The IPA symbol used to show a division between syllables is the full stop (IPA|.). Syllabification is the process of dividing continuous speech into discrete syllables, a process in which the position of a syllable division is not always easy to decide upon.
Most languages of the world syllabify pronounced as /CVCV/ and pronounced as /CVCCV/ sequences as pronounced as //CV.CV// and pronounced as //CVC.CV// or pronounced as //CV.CCV//, with consonants preferentially acting as the onset of a syllable containing the following vowel. According to one view, English is unusual in this regard, in that stressed syllables attract following consonants, so that pronounced as /ˈCVCV/ and pronounced as /ˈCVCCV/ syllabify as pronounced as //ˈCVC.V// and pronounced as //ˈCVCC.V//, as long as the consonant cluster pronounced as /CC/ is a possible syllable coda; in addition, pronounced as //r// preferentially syllabifies with the preceding vowel even when both syllables are unstressed, so that pronounced as /CVrV/ occurs as pronounced as //CVr.V//. This is the analysis used in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. However, this view is not widely accepted, as explained in the following section.
English allows clusters of up to three consonants in the syllable onset and up to four consonants in the syllable coda, giving a general syllable structure of (C)3V(C)4, a potential example being strengths pronounced as //strɛŋkθs// (although this word has variant pronunciations with only 3 coda consonants, such as pronounced as //strɛŋθs//). A five-consonant coda may occur in the word angsts, but this is a highly exceptional case, as the word is both infrequent and not always pronounced with five final segments (it can be analyzed as a VC4 syllable pronounced as //æŋsts// rather than as VC5 pronounced as //æŋksts//). From the phonetic point of view, the analysis of syllable structures is a complex task: because of widespread occurrences of articulatory overlap, English speakers rarely produce an audible release of individual consonants in consonant clusters. This coarticulation can lead to articulatory gestures that seem very much like deletions or complete assimilations. For example, hundred pounds may sound like pronounced as /[hʌndɹɪ'''b''' paʊndz]/ and jumped back (in slow speech, pronounced as /[dʒʌmptbæk]/) may sound like pronounced as /[dʒʌmpbæk]/, but X-ray and electropalatographic studies demonstrate that inaudible and possibly weakened contacts or lingual gestures may still be made. Thus the second pronounced as //d// in hundred pounds does not entirely assimilate to a labial place of articulation, rather the labial gesture co-occurs with the alveolar one; the "missing" pronounced as /[t]/ in jumped back may still be articulated, though not heard.
Division into syllables is a difficult area, and different theories have been proposed. A widely accepted approach is the maximal onset principle: this states that, subject to certain constraints, any consonants in between vowels should be assigned to the following syllable. Thus the word leaving should be divided pronounced as //ˈliː.vɪŋ// rather than *pronounced as //ˈliːv.ɪŋ//, and hasty is pronounced as //ˈheɪ.sti// rather than *pronounced as //ˈheɪs.ti// or *pronounced as //ˈheɪst.i//. However, when such a division results in an onset cluster that is not allowed in English, the division must respect this. Thus if the word extra were divided *pronounced as //ˈɛ.kstrə// the resulting onset of the second syllable would be pronounced as //kstr//, a cluster that does not occur initially in English. The division pronounced as //ˈɛk.strə// is therefore preferred. If assigning a consonant or consonants to the following syllable would result in the preceding syllable ending in an unreduced short vowel, this is avoided. Thus the word lemma should be divided pronounced as //ˈlɛm.ə// and not *pronounced as //ˈlɛ.mə//, even though the latter division gives the maximal onset to the following syllable.
In some cases, no solution is completely satisfactory: for example, in British English (RP) the word hurry could be divided pronounced as //ˈhʌ.ri// or pronounced as //ˈhʌr.i//, but the former would result in an analysis with a syllable-final pronounced as //ʌ// (which is held to be non-occurring) while the latter would result in a syllable final pronounced as //r// (which is said not to occur in this accent). Some phonologists have suggested a compromise analysis where the consonant in the middle belongs to both syllables, and is described as ambisyllabic. In this way, it is possible to suggest an analysis of hurry that comprises the syllables pronounced as //hʌr// and pronounced as //ri//, the medial pronounced as //r// being ambisyllabic. Where the division coincides with a word boundary, or the boundary between elements of a compound word, it is not usual in the case of dictionaries to insist on the maximal onset principle in a way that divides words in a counter-intuitive way; thus the word hardware would be divided pronounced as //ˈhɑː.dweə// by the maximal onset principle, but dictionaries prefer the division pronounced as //ˈhɑːd.weə//.
In the approach used by the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, Wells claims that consonants syllabify with the preceding rather than following vowel when the preceding vowel is the nucleus of a more salient syllable, with stressed syllables being the most salient, reduced syllables the least, and full unstressed vowels ("secondary stress") intermediate. But there are lexical differences as well, frequently but not exclusively with compound words. For example, in dolphin and selfish, Wells argues that the stressed syllable ends in pronounced as //lf//, but in shellfish, the pronounced as //f// belongs with the following syllable: pronounced as //ˈdɒlf.ɪn, ˈself.ɪʃ// → pronounced as /[ˈdɒlfɪ̈n, ˈselfɪ̈ʃ]/, but pronounced as //ˈʃel.fɪʃ// → pronounced as /[ˈʃelˑfɪʃ]/, where the pronounced as //l// is a little longer and the pronounced as //ɪ// is not reduced. Similarly, in toe-strap Wells argues that the second pronounced as //t// is a full plosive, as usual in syllable onset, whereas in toast-rack the second pronounced as //t// is in many dialects reduced to the unreleased allophone it takes in syllable codas, or even elided: pronounced as //ˈtoʊ.stræp/, /ˈtoʊst.ræk// → pronounced as /[ˈtoˑʊstɹæp, ˈtoʊs(t̚)ɹæk]/; likewise nitrate pronounced as //ˈnaɪtr.eɪt// → pronounced as /[ˈnaɪtɹ̥eɪt]/ with a voiceless pronounced as //r// (and for some people an affricated tr as in tree), vs night-rate pronounced as //ˈnaɪt.reɪt// → pronounced as /[ˈnaɪt̚ɹeɪt]/ with a voiced pronounced as //r//. Cues of syllable boundaries include aspiration of syllable onsets and (in the US) flapping of coda pronounced as //t, d// (a tease pronounced as //ə.ˈtiːz// → pronounced as /[əˈtʰiːz]/ vs. at ease pronounced as //ət.ˈiːz// → pronounced as /[əɾˈiːz]/), epenthetic stops like pronounced as /[t]/ in syllable codas (fence pronounced as //ˈfens// → pronounced as /[ˈfents]/ but inside pronounced as //ɪn.ˈsaɪd// → pronounced as /[ɪnˈsaɪd]/), and r-colored vowels when the pronounced as //r// is in the coda vs. labialization when it is in the onset (key-ring pronounced as //ˈkiː.rɪŋ// → pronounced as /[ˈkiːɹʷɪŋ]/ but fearing pronounced as //ˈfiːr.ɪŋ// → pronounced as /[ˈfɪəɹɪŋ]/).
The following can occur as the onset:
| All single-consonant phonemes except pronounced as //ŋ// | ||
| Stop plus approximant other than pronounced as //j//:pronounced as //pl//, pronounced as //bl//, pronounced as //kl//, pronounced as //ɡl//, pronounced as //pr//, pronounced as //br//, pronounced as //tr//, pronounced as //dr//, pronounced as //kr//, pronounced as //ɡr//, pronounced as //tw//, pronounced as //dw//, pronounced as //ɡw//, pronounced as //kw//, pronounced as //pw// | play, blood, clean, glove, prize, bring, tree, dream, crowd, green, twin, dwarf, Guam, quick, puissance | |
| Voiceless fricative or pronounced as //v// plus approximant other than pronounced as //j//:pronounced as //fl//, pronounced as //sl//, pronounced as //θl//, pronounced as //ʃl//, pronounced as //fr//, pronounced as //θr//, pronounced as //ʃr//, pronounced as //hw//, pronounced as //sw//, pronounced as //θw//, pronounced as //vw// | floor, sleep, thlipsis, schlep, friend, three, shrimp, what, swoon, thwart, voilà | |
| Consonant other than pronounced as //r// or pronounced as //w// plus pronounced as //j// (before pronounced as //uː// or its modified/reduced forms):pronounced as //pj//, pronounced as //bj//, pronounced as //tj//, pronounced as //dj//, pronounced as //kj//, pronounced as //ɡj//, pronounced as //mj//, pronounced as //nj//, pronounced as //fj//, pronounced as //vj//, pronounced as //θj//, pronounced as //sj//, pronounced as //zj//, pronounced as //hj//, pronounced as //lj// | pure, beautiful, tube, during, cute, argue, music, new, few, view, thew, suit, Zeus, huge, lurid | |
| pronounced as //s// plus voiceless stop:pronounced as //sp//, pronounced as //st//, pronounced as //sk// | speak, stop, skill | |
| pronounced as //s// plus nasal other than pronounced as //ŋ//:pronounced as //sm//, pronounced as //sn// | smile, snow | |
| pronounced as //s// plus voiceless non-sibilant fricative:pronounced as //sf//, pronounced as //sθ// | sphere, sthenic | |
| pronounced as //s// plus voiceless stop plus approximant:pronounced as //spl//, pronounced as //skl//, pronounced as //spr//, pronounced as //str//, pronounced as //skr//, pronounced as //skw//, pronounced as //spj//, pronounced as //stj//, pronounced as //skj// | split, sclera, spring, street, scream, square, spew, student, skewer | |
| pronounced as //s// plus nasal plus approximant:pronounced as //smj// pronounced as //snj// | smew, snew | |
| pronounced as //s// plus voiceless non-sibilant fricative plus approximant:pronounced as //sfr// | sphragistics |
Notes:
Certain English onsets appear only in contractions: e.g. pronounced as //zbl// ('sblood), and pronounced as //zw// or pronounced as //dzw// ('swounds or 'dswounds). Some, such as pronounced as //pʃ// (pshaw), pronounced as //fw// (fwoosh), or pronounced as //vr// (vroom), can occur in interjections. An archaic voiceless fricative plus nasal exists, pronounced as //fn// (fnese), as does an archaic pronounced as //snj// (snew).
Several additional onsets occur in loan words (with varying degrees of anglicization) such as pronounced as //bw// (bwana), pronounced as //mw// (moiré), pronounced as //nw// (noire), pronounced as //tsw// (zwitterion), pronounced as //zw// (zwieback), pronounced as //dv// (Dvorak), pronounced as //kv// (kvetch), pronounced as //ʃv// (schvartze), pronounced as //tv// (Tver), pronounced as //tsv// (Zwickau), pronounced as //kʃ// (Kshatriya), pronounced as //tl// (Tlaloc), pronounced as //vl// (Vladimir), pronounced as //zl// (zloty), pronounced as //tsk// (Tskhinvali), pronounced as //hm// (Hmong), pronounced as //km// (Khmer), and pronounced as //ŋ// (Nganasan).
Some clusters of this type can be converted to regular English phonotactics by simplifying the cluster: e.g. pronounced as //(d)z// (dziggetai), pronounced as //(h)r// (Hrolf), pronounced as //kr(w)// (croissant), pronounced as //(ŋ)w// (Nguyen), pronounced as //(p)f// (pfennig), pronounced as //(f)θ// (phthalic), pronounced as //(t)s// (tsunami), pronounced as //(ǃ)k// (!kung), and pronounced as //k(ǁ)// (Xhosa).
Others can be replaced by native clusters differing only in voice: pronounced as //zb ~ sp// (sbirro), and pronounced as //zɡr ~ skr// (sgraffito).
The following can occur as the nucleus:
Most (in theory, all) of the following except those that end with pronounced as //s//, pronounced as //z//, pronounced as //ʃ//, pronounced as //ʒ//, pronounced as //tʃ// or pronounced as //dʒ// can be extended with pronounced as //s// or pronounced as //z// representing the morpheme -s/-z. Similarly, most (in theory, all) of the following except those that end with pronounced as //t// or pronounced as //d// can be extended with pronounced as //t// or pronounced as //d// representing the morpheme -t/-d.
argues that a variety of syllable codas are possible in English, even pronounced as //ntr, ndr// in words like entry pronounced as //ˈɛntr.i// and sundry pronounced as //ˈsʌndr.i//, with pronounced as //tr, dr// being treated as affricates along the lines of pronounced as //tʃ, dʒ//. He argues that the traditional assumption that pre-vocalic consonants form a syllable with the following vowel is due to the influence of languages like French and Latin, where syllable structure is CVC.CVC regardless of stress placement. Disregarding such contentious cases, which do not occur at the ends of words, the following sequences can occur as the coda:
| The single consonant phonemes except pronounced as //h//, pronounced as //w//, pronounced as //j// and, in non-rhotic varieties, pronounced as //r// | ||
| Lateral approximant plus stop or affricate: pronounced as //lp//, pronounced as //lb//, pronounced as //lt//, pronounced as //ld//, pronounced as //ltʃ//, pronounced as //ldʒ//, pronounced as //lk// | help, bulb, belt, hold, belch, indulge, milk | |
| In rhotic varieties, pronounced as //r// plus stop or affricate: pronounced as //rp//, pronounced as //rb//, pronounced as //rt//, pronounced as //rd//, pronounced as //rtʃ//, pronounced as //rdʒ//, pronounced as //rk//, pronounced as //rɡ// | harp, orb, fort, beard, arch, large, mark, morgue | |
| Lateral approximant + fricative: pronounced as //lf//, pronounced as //lv//, pronounced as //lθ//, pronounced as //ls//, pronounced as //lz//, pronounced as //lʃ//, (pronounced as //lð//) | golf, solve, wealth, else, bells, Welsh, (stealth (v.)) | |
| In rhotic varieties, pronounced as //r// + fricative: pronounced as //rf//, pronounced as //rv//, pronounced as //rθ//, pronounced as //rð//, pronounced as //rs//, pronounced as //rz//, pronounced as //rʃ// | dwarf, carve, north, birth (v.), force, Mars, marsh | |
| Lateral approximant + nasal: pronounced as //lm//, pronounced as //ln// | film, kiln | |
| In rhotic varieties, pronounced as //r// + nasal or lateral: pronounced as //rm//, pronounced as //rn//, pronounced as //rl// | arm, born, snarl | |
| Nasal + homorganic stop or affricate: pronounced as //mp//, pronounced as //nt//, pronounced as //nd//, pronounced as //ntʃ//, pronounced as //ndʒ//, pronounced as //ŋk//; some varieties also allow pronounced as //ŋg// | jump, tent, end, lunch, lounge, pink, sing | |
| Nasal + fricative: pronounced as //mf//, pronounced as //mz//, pronounced as //mθ//, (pronounced as //nf//), pronounced as //nθ//, (pronounced as //ns//), pronounced as //nz//, pronounced as //ŋz//; some varieties also allow pronounced as //ŋθ// | triumph, Thames, warmth, (saunf), month, (prince), bronze, songs, length, strength | |
| Voiceless fricative plus voiceless stop: pronounced as //ft//, pronounced as //sp//, pronounced as //st//, pronounced as //sk//, pronounced as //ʃt//, pronounced as //θt// | left, crisp, lost, ask, smashed, smithed | |
| Voiced fricative plus voiced stop: pronounced as //zd//, pronounced as //ðd// | blazed, writhed | |
| Two or three voiceless fricatives: pronounced as //fθ//, pronounced as //fθs// | fifth, fifths | |
| Two voiceless stops: pronounced as //pt//, pronounced as //kt// | opt, act | |
| Two voiceless stops + fricative: pronounced as //pts//, pronounced as //kts// | opts, acts | |
| Stop plus fricative: pronounced as //pθ//, pronounced as //ps//, /bz/, pronounced as //tθ//, pronounced as //ts//, pronounced as //dθ//, pronounced as //dz//, pronounced as //ks//, /gz/ | depth, lapse, ebbs, eighth, klutz, width, adze, box, eggs | |
| Lateral approximant + two or three consonants: pronounced as //lmd//, pronounced as //lpt//, pronounced as //lps//, pronounced as //lfθ//, pronounced as //lts//, pronounced as //lst//, pronounced as //lkt//, pronounced as //lks// | filmed, sculpt, alps, twelfth, waltz, whilst, mulct, calx | |
| In rhotic varieties, pronounced as //r// + two consonants: pronounced as //rmd//, pronounced as //rmθ//, pronounced as //rpt//, pronounced as //rps//, pronounced as //rnd//, pronounced as //rts//, pronounced as //rst//, pronounced as //rld//, pronounced as //rkt//, pronounced as //rks// | farmed, warmth, excerpt, corpse, mourned, quartz, horst, world, infarct, irks | |
| Nasal + homorganic stop + stop or fricative: pronounced as //mpt//, pronounced as //mps//, pronounced as //nts//, pronounced as //ntθ//, pronounced as //ŋkt//, pronounced as //ŋks//, pronounced as //ŋkθ// in some varieties | prompt, glimpse, chintz, thousandth, distinct, jinx, length | |
| Nasal + homorganic stop + two fricatives: pronounced as //ntθs// | thousandths | |
| Nasal + non-homorganic stop: pronounced as //mt//, pronounced as //md//, pronounced as //ŋd// | dreamt, hemmed, hanged | |
| Three obstruents: pronounced as //ksθ//, pronounced as //kst// | sixth, next | |
| Four obstruents: pronounced as //ksθs//, pronounced as //ksθt//, pronounced as //ksts// | sixths, sixthed, texts |
For some speakers, a fricative before pronounced as //θ// is elided so that these never appear phonetically: pronounced as //fɪfθ// becomes pronounced as /[fɪθ]/, pronounced as //sɪksθ// becomes pronounced as /[sɪkθ]/, pronounced as //twɛlfθ// becomes pronounced as /[twɛlθ]/.
The prosodic features of English – stress, rhythm, and intonation – can be described as follows.
Prosodic stress is extra stress given to words or syllables when they appear in certain positions in an utterance, or when they receive special emphasis.
According to Ladefoged's analysis (as referred to under above), English normally has prosodic stress on the final stressed syllable in an intonation unit. This is said to be the origin of the distinction traditionally made at the lexical level between primary and secondary stress: when a word like admiration (traditionally transcribed as something like pronounced as //ˌædmɪˈreɪʃən//) is spoken in isolation, or at the end of a sentence, the syllable ra (the final stressed syllable) is pronounced with greater force than the syllable ad, although when the word is not pronounced with this final intonation there may be no difference between the levels of stress of these two syllables.
Prosodic stress can shift for various pragmatic functions, such as focus or contrast. For instance, in the dialogue Is it brunch tomorrow? No, it's dinner tomorrow, the extra stress shifts from the last stressed syllable of the sentence, tomorrow, to the last stressed syllable of the emphasized word, dinner.
Grammatical function words are usually prosodically unstressed, although they can acquire stress when emphasized (as in Did you find the cat? Well, I found a cat). Many English function words have distinct strong and weak pronunciations; for example, the word a in the last example is pronounced pronounced as //eɪ//, while the more common unstressed a is pronounced pronounced as //ə//. See Weak and strong forms in English.
English is claimed to be a stress-timed language. That is, stressed syllables tend to appear with a more or less regular rhythm, while non-stressed syllables are shortened to accommodate this. For example, in the sentence One make of car is better than another, the syllables one, make, car, bett- and will be stressed and relatively long, while the other syllables will be considerably shorter. The theory of stress-timing predicts that each of the three unstressed syllables in between bett- and will be shorter than the syllable of between make and car, because three syllables must fit into the same amount of time as that available for of. However, it should not be assumed that all varieties of English are stress-timed in this way. The English spoken in the West Indies, in Africa and in India are probably better characterized as syllable-timed, though the lack of an agreed scientific test for categorizing an accent or language as stress-timed or syllable-timed may lead one to doubt the value of such a characterization.
Phonological contrasts in intonation can be said to be found in three different and independent domains. In the work of Halliday the following names are proposed:
These terms ("the Three Ts") have been used in more recent work, though they have been criticized for being difficult to remember. American systems such as ToBI also identify contrasts involving boundaries between intonation phrases (Halliday's tonality), placement of pitch accent (tonicity), and choice of tone or tones associated with the pitch accent (tone).
Example of phonological contrast involving placement of intonation unit boundaries (boundary marked by comma):
Example of phonological contrast involving placement of tonic syllable (marked by capital letters):
Example of phonological contrast (British English) involving choice of tone (\ = falling tone, \/ = fall-rise tone)
There is typically a contrast involving tone between wh-questions and yes/no questions, the former having a falling tone (e.g. "Where did you \PUT it?") and the latter a rising tone (e.g. "Are you going /OUT?"), though studies of spontaneous speech have shown frequent exceptions to this rule. Tag questions asking for information are said to carry rising tones (e.g. "They are coming on Tuesday, /AREN'T they?") while those asking for confirmation have falling tone (e.g. "Your name's John, \ISN'T it.").
See main article: Phonological history of English.
The pronunciation system of English has undergone many changes throughout the history of the language, from the phonological system of Old English, to that of Middle English, through to that of the present day. Variation between dialects has always been significant. Former pronunciations of many words are reflected in their spellings, as English orthography has generally not kept pace with phonological changes since the Middle English period.
The English consonant system has been relatively stable over time, although a number of significant changes have occurred. Examples include the loss (in most dialects) of the pronounced as /[ç]/ and pronounced as /[x]/ sounds still reflected by the (gh) in words like night and taught, and the splitting of voiced and voiceless allophones of fricatives into separate phonemes (such as the two different phonemes represented by (th)). There have also been many changes in consonant clusters, mostly reductions, for instance those that produced the usual modern pronunciations of such letter combinations as (wr-), (kn-) and (wh-).
The development of vowels has been much more complex. One of the most notable series of changes is that known as the Great Vowel Shift, which began around the late 14th century. Here the pronounced as /[iː]/ and pronounced as /[uː]/ in words like price and mouth became diphthongized, and other long vowels became higher: pronounced as /[eː]/ became pronounced as /[iː]/ (as in meet), pronounced as /[aː]/ became pronounced as /[eː]/ and later pronounced as /[eɪ]/ (as in name), pronounced as /[oː]/ became pronounced as /[uː]/ (as in goose), and pronounced as /[ɔː]/ became pronounced as /[oː]/ and later pronounced as /[oʊ]/ (in RP now pronounced as /[əʊ]/; as in bone). These shifts are responsible for the modern pronunciations of many written vowel combinations, including those involving a silent final (e).
Many other changes in vowels have taken place over the centuries (see the separate articles on the low back, high back and high front vowels, short A, and diphthongs). These various changes mean that many words that formerly rhymed (and may be expected to rhyme based on their spelling) no longer do. For example, in Shakespeare's time, following the Great Vowel Shift, food, good and blood all had the vowel pronounced as /[uː]/, but in modern pronunciation good has been shortened to pronounced as /[ʊ]/, while blood has been shortened and lowered to pronounced as /[ʌ]/ in most accents. In other cases, words that were formerly distinct have come to be pronounced the same – examples of such mergers include meet–meat, pane–pain and toe–tow.
The phonemic status of the velar nasal consonant pronounced as /[ŋ]/ is disputed; one analysis claims that the only nasal phonemes in English are pronounced as //m// and pronounced as //n//, while pronounced as /[ŋ]/ is an allophone of pronounced as //n// found before velar consonants. Evidence in support of this analysis is found in accents of the north-west Midlands of England where pronounced as /[ŋ]/ is found only before pronounced as //k// or pronounced as //ɡ//, with sung being pronounced as pronounced as /[sʌŋɡ]/. However, in most other accents of English sung is pronounced pronounced as /[sʌŋ]/, producing a three-way phonemic contrast sum – sun – sung pronounced as //sʌm sʌn sʌŋ// and supporting the analysis of the phonemic status of pronounced as //ŋ//. In support of treating the velar nasal as an allophone of pronounced as //n//, claims on psychological grounds that pronounced as /[ŋ]/ did not form part of a series of three nasal consonants: "no naïve English-speaking person can be made to feel in his bones that it belongs to a single series with m and n. ... It still feels like ƞg." More recent writers have indicated that analyses of pronounced as /[ŋ]/ as an allophone of pronounced as //n// may still have merit, even though pronounced as /[ŋ]/ may appear both with and without a following velar consonant; in such analyses, an underlying pronounced as //ɡ// that is deleted by a phonological rule would account for occurrences of pronounced as /[ŋ]/ not followed by a velar consonant. Thus the phonemic representation of sing would be pronounced as //sɪnɡ// and that of singer is pronounced as //sɪnɡə//; in order to reach the phonetic form pronounced as /[sɪŋ]/ and pronounced as /[sɪŋə]/, it is necessary to apply a rule that changes pronounced as //n// to pronounced as /[ŋ]/ before pronounced as //k// or pronounced as //ɡ//, then a second rule that deletes pronounced as //ɡ// when it follows pronounced as /[ŋ]/.
These produce the following results:
| Word | Underlying phonological form | Phonetic form |
|---|---|---|
| sing | pronounced as //sɪnɡ// | pronounced as /[sɪŋ]/ |
| singer | pronounced as //ˈsɪnɡər// | pronounced as /['sɪŋər]/ |
| singing | pronounced as //ˈsɪnɡɪnɡ// | pronounced as /['sɪŋɪŋ]/ |
However, these rules do not predict the following phonetic forms:
| Word | Underlying phonological form | Phonetic form |
|---|---|---|
| anger | pronounced as //ˈænɡər// | pronounced as /['æŋɡər]/ |
| finger | pronounced as //ˈfɪnɡər// | pronounced as /['fɪŋɡər]/ |
| hunger | pronounced as //ˈhʌnɡər// | pronounced as /['hʌŋɡər]/ |
In the above cases, the pronounced as //ɡ// is not deleted. The words are all single morphemes, unlike singer and singing which are composed of two morphemes, sing plus -er or -ing. Rule 2 can be amended to include a symbol # for a morpheme boundary (including word boundary):
2. pronounced as //ɡ/ → ∅ / [ŋ] ___ #/
This rule then applies to sing, singer and singing but not to anger, finger, or hunger.
According to this rule, the words hangar ('shed for aircraft'), which contains no internal morpheme boundary, and hanger ('object for hanging clothes'), which comprises two morphemes, are expected to constitute a minimal pair as hangar pronounced as /[ˈhæŋɡə]/ versus hanger pronounced as /[ˈhæŋə]/; in actuality, their pronunciations are not consistently distinguished in this manner, as hangar is frequently pronounced pronounced as /[ˈhæŋə]/.
Additionally, there are exceptions in the form of comparative and superlative forms of adjectives, where Rule 2 must be prevented from applying. The ending -ish is another possible exception.
| Word | Underlying phonological form | Phonetic form |
|---|---|---|
| long | pronounced as //lɒnɡ// | pronounced as /[lɒŋ]/ |
| longer | pronounced as //ˈlɒnɡər// | pronounced as /['lɒŋɡər]/ |
| longest | pronounced as //ˈlɒnɡɪst// | pronounced as /['lɒŋɡəst]/ |
| longish | pronounced as //ˈlɒnɡɪʃ// | pronounced as /['lɒŋɡɪʃ] or ['lɒŋɪʃ]/ |
As a result, there is, in theory, a minimal pair consisting of longer (pronounced as /[lɒŋɡər]/ 'more long') and longer (pronounced as /[lɒŋər]/ 'person who longs'), though it is doubtful that native speakers make this distinction regularly. Names of persons and places, and loanwords, are less predictable. Singapore may be pronounced with or without pronounced as /[ɡ]/; bungalow usually has pronounced as /[ɡ]/; and Inge may or may not have pronounced as /[ɡ]/.
It is often stated that English has a particularly large number of vowel phonemes and that there are 20 vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation, 14–16 in General American, and 20–21 in Australian English. These numbers, however, reflect just one of many possible phonological analyses. A number of "biphonemic" analyses have proposed that English has a basic set of short (sometimes called "simple" or "checked") vowels, each of which can be shown to be a phoneme and can be combined with another phoneme to form long vowels and diphthongs. One of these biphonemic analyses asserts that diphthongs and long vowels may be interpreted as comprising a short vowel linked to a consonant. The fullest exposition of this approach is found in, where all long vowels and diphthongs ("complex nuclei") are made up of a short vowel combined with either pronounced as //j// (for which the authors use the symbol (y)), pronounced as //w// or pronounced as //h// (plus pronounced as //r// for rhotic accents), each thus comprising two phonemes. Using this system, the word bite would be transcribed pronounced as //bajt//, bout as pronounced as //bawt//, bar as pronounced as //bar// and bra as pronounced as //brah//. One attraction that the authors claim for this analysis is that it regularizes the distribution of the consonants pronounced as //j//, pronounced as //w//, and pronounced as //h// (as well as pronounced as //r// in non-rhotic accents), which would otherwise not be found in syllable-final position. suggest nine simple vowel phonemes to allow them to represent all the accents of American and British English they surveyed, symbolized pronounced as //i, e, æ// (front vowels); pronounced as //ᵻ, ə, a// (central vowels); and pronounced as //u, o, ɔ// (back vowels).
The analysis from came out of a desire to build an "overall system" to accommodate all English dialects, with dialectal distinctions arising from differences in the ordering of phonological rules, as well as in the presence or absence of such rules. Another category of biphonemic analyses of English treats long vowels and diphthongs as conjunctions of two vowels. Such analyses, as found in or for example, are less concerned with dialectal variation. In, for example, there are seven basic vowels and these may be doubled (geminated) to represent long vowels, as shown in the table below:
| Short vowel | Long vowel | |
|---|---|---|
| i (bit) | ii (beet) | |
| e (bet) | ||
| a (cat) | aa (cart) | |
| o (cot) | oo (caught) | |
| u (pull) | uu (pool) | |
| ə (collect) | əə (curl) |
Some of the short vowels may also be combined with pronounced as //i// (pronounced as //ei// bay, pronounced as //ai// buy, pronounced as //oi// boy), with pronounced as //u// (pronounced as //au// pronounced as /bough/, pronounced as //ou// beau) or with pronounced as //ə// (pronounced as //iə// peer, pronounced as //eə// pair, pronounced as //uə// poor). The vowel inventory of English RP in MacCarthy's system therefore totals only seven phonemes. Analyses such as these could also posit six vowel phonemes, if the vowel of the final syllable in comma is considered to be an unstressed allophone of that of strut. These seven vowels might be symbolized pronounced as //i//, pronounced as //e//, pronounced as //a//, pronounced as //o//, pronounced as //u//, pronounced as //ʌ// and pronounced as //ə//. Six or seven vowels is a figure that would put English much closer to the average number of vowel phonemes in other languages.
A radically different approach to the English vowel system was proposed by Chomsky and Halle. Their Sound Pattern of English proposed that English has lax and tense vowel phonemes, which are operated on by a complex set of phonological rules to transform underlying phonological forms into surface phonetic representations. This generative analysis is not easily comparable with conventional analyses, but the total number of vowel phonemes proposed falls well short of the figure of 20 often claimed as the number of English vowel phonemes.