The world of sounds | Beyond the Alphabet | Karsan Desai

 

Today we will discuss two more phonemes: /f,v/ 

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 /f/ During the articulation of  /f/  the lower lip is brought very close to the upper front teeth so that the gap between them is extremely narrow. The soft palate is raised and thus the nasal passage of air is blocked completely. The air escapes through the narrow gap between the lower lip and the upper front teeth with audible friction. The vocal cords are held wide apart and they do not vibrate. /f/ is thus a voiceless,  labio-dental , fricative.

Spellings: 

/f/ is represented by

i) the letter f as in food,  four

ii) the letters ff as in coffee, affect

iii) the letters ph as in photo, pho netics

iv) the letters gh as in cough, tough 

/f/ can occur initially, medially and finally as:

word initial/f/

fine

fill 

first 

word medial/f/

office

lift   

coffee         

word final/f/

roof

calf              

tough 

/f/ should be clearly distinguished from aspirated/p/ ( that is,ph ) to avoid confusion between words like

  fair and pair 

full and pool

/v/ is  articulated adjective like  /f/ described above except that during the articulation of /v/  the vocal cords vibrate producing voice why does a voice.  /v/ is thus voiced, labio- dental fricative

Spellings: 

/v/ is represented by

i ) the letter v as in over

ii) the letter f as in of

iii) the letters ph as in nephew

Distribution:

/v/ occurs  initially,  medially and finally as

word initial/v/in

vine 

van        

vice

word medial/v/

ever

cover      

over

word final/v/

move

live

love        

Most Indians speakers replace /v/ by soft frictionless sound /V/ which is hardly  audible to native speakers of English. For international standards the fricative /v/ should be learnt. It can be produced by adding voice to /f/.

The English consonants /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ and /h/ are called  fricatives.  During the articulation of fricatives, the passage is so narrow that the air passes through it with audible friction. 

In English, there are nine fricative consonants. These are :

1)  /f/ and /v/ are labiodental fricatives

2) /θ/ and /ð/ are dental fricatives

3) /s/ and /z/ alveolar fricatives 

4) /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ are palato-alveolar fricatives

5) /h/ is glottal fricative 

On the basis of the place of articulation /f/, /θ/, /s/, /ʃ/ and /h/ are voiceless and /v/, /ð/ , /z/, /ʒ/ are voiced. 

In next issue, we will discuss more...