The consonants j and w

These are the consonants found at the beginning of words such as 'yet' and 'wet'. They are known as approximants. The most important thing to remember about these phonemes is that they are phonetically like vowels but phonologically like consonants (in earlier works on phonology they were known as "semivowels"). From the phonetic point of view the articulation of j is practically the same as that of a front close vowel such as [i], but is very short. In the same way w is closely similar to [u]. If you make the initial sound of 'yet' or 'wet' very long, you will be able to hear this. But despite this vowel-like character, we use them like consonants. For example, they only occur before vowel phonemes; this is a typically consonantal distribution. We can show that a word beginning with w or j is treated as beginning with a consonant in the following way: the indefinite article is 'a' before a consonant (as in 'a cat', 'a dog'), and 'an' before a vowel (as in 'an apple', 'an orange'). If a word beginning with w or j is preceded by the indefinite article, it is the 'a' form that is found (as in 'a way', 'a year'). Another example is that of the definite article. Here the rule is that 'the' is pronounced as ðə before consonants (as in 'the dog' ðə  dɒg, 'the cat' ðə kæt) and as Di before vowels (as in 'the apple' ði æpl, 'the orange' ði ɒrɪndƷ). This evidence illustrates why it is said that j, w are phonologically consonants. However, it is important to remember that to pronounce them as fricatives (as many foreign learners do), or as affricates, is a mispronunciation. Only in special contexts do we hear friction noise in j or w; this is when they are preceded by p, t, k at the beginning of a syllable, as in these words:

'pure'         pjʊə           (no English words begin with pw)

'tune'         tju:n          ‘twin'     twɪn

‘queue’      kju:            ‘quit’     kwɪt

When p, t, k come at the beginning of a syllable and are followed by a vowel, they are aspirated. This means that the beginning of a vowel is voiceless in this context. However, when p, t, k are followed not by a vowel but by one of l, r, j, w, these voiced continuant consonants undergo a similar process, as has been mentioned earlier: they lose their voicing and become fricative. So words like 'play' pleɪ, 'tray' treɪ, 'quick' kwɪk, 'cue' kju:: contain devoiced and fricative l, r, w, j whereas 'lay', 'ray', 'wick', 'you contain voiced l, r, w, j. Consequently, if for example 'tray' were to be pronounced without devoicing of the r (i.e. with fully voiced r) English speakers would be likely to hear the word 'dray'.

This completes our examination of the consonant phonemes of English. It is useful to place them on a consonant chart, and this is done in Table l. On this chart, the different places of articulation are arranged from left to right and the manners of articulation are arranged from top to bottom. When there is a pair of phonemes with the same place and manner of articulation but differing in whether they are fortis or lenis (voiceless or voiced), the symbol for the fortis consonant is placed to the left of the symbol for the lenis consonant.