Affricates

Lecture No.8
Title: Affricates
Affricates are rather complex consonants. they begin as plosives and end as fricatives. Such sounds are /?/ and /?/ as illustrated in the word change /?ein?/ where it has /?/ and /?/. It should be noted that /?/ and /?/ are considered as single phonemes. Thus the word change transcribed above has four phonemes such as: /?/,/ei/, /n/ and /?/. It is impossible to class all sequences of plosive plus fricative as affricate. For example, the combination /k/ plus /f/ in the middle of the word breakfast is not affricate because /k/ and /f/ are produced with different articulators in that /k/ is produced when the back of the tongue touches the soft palate, whereas /f/ is produced when the lower lip touches the upper front teeth. On the other hand, /t/ and /?/ are produced with same articulators, I,e. the blade of the tongue touches the alveolar ridge. This means that they are homorganic.
Fortis consonants
Fortis fricatives and plosives shorten the preceding vowels.thus, the diphthong /ai/ in ice /ais/ is shorter than /ai/ in eyes/aiz/. Similarly, fortis consonants such as /p/, /t/ and /k/ shorten the preceding consonants such as /l/, /m/, /n/ and /?/ as in belt /belt/, bent /bent/ and so on. Voiced consonants such as /l, r, w j/ become voiceless when preceded by fortis consonants such as the plosives /p, t, k/ as in play /plei/ and so on.