n: bilabial, alveolar and velar, respectively, differ as regards the noise burst they produce. Alveolar plosives display higher frequencies (3000-4000 cps) than the bilabial (around 360 cps) and velar ones (around 700 cps).
. The Nasal stops .. [m] is a bilabial, voiced, lenis, nasal stop. As in the case of all nasal sonorants, when we articulate this sound the velum is lowered, blocking the oral cavity and letting the air escape through the nose. There are no differences between the English sound and its Turkish counterpart. [M] is distributed in all basic positions: initial, medial and final: make, remote, dim. It can be spelt with m or mm: come, common. It should be said, however, that English does not accept a sequence of two nasal sounds in the same syllable, words like solemn and hymn differing from their Turkish counterparts as the last nasal sound is not pronounced. If an affix is ??added, nevertheless, that begins with a vowel, the second consonant is recovered. Compare solemn [s] lem] to solemnity [s] lemnwtw] .. [n] is an alveolar, voiced, lenis, nasal stop. The place of articulation is similar to that of [t] and [d], but [n] is a nasal sound, so the air is released through the nose and not through the mouth. It is similar to its Turkish counterpart. It is distributed in all three basic positions - initial, medial and final: name, renown, can. It is spelt n or nn: dean, annual. The sound is elided in final position after [m], but recovered in derived words: damn, damnation. (See also solemn and solemnity above) .. [?] Is a velar, voiced, lenis, nasal stop. It occurs in the vicinity of the velar oral plosives in words like link or wrong. It is to be noted that in present day English the velar oral plosive in the last word is no longer pronounced, but we can find the velar nasal in front of [g] in connected speech in sequences like I can get it. A similar sound can be found in Turkish, in words like banc?, Rang?, But in our language it does not have a phonemic, contrastive value. As pointed out above, this phoneme has a limited distribution: it always precedes the voiceless velar plosive or occurs in syllable-final position in front of an elided [g] .. The English Fricativesare, as we remember, sounds that are produced by narrowing the speech tract and letting the air out, a process which is accompanied by friction and in some cases by a hissing sound.
[f] is a labio-dental, voiceless, fortis consonant. It is produced by pressing the lower lip against the upper teeth and forcing the air out between them. The sound is similar to its Turkish counterpart.The sound can be spelt f - as in fine, fllare, fringe, feud, loaf, stifle, ff - as in effort, snuff, ph - as in physics, graph, or even gh -as in enough, tough. The word lieutenant [leftencnt] is a particular case.
[v] is the voiced, lenis pair of [f] with which it shares the place (labio-dental) and manner (fricative) of articulation. It is important to remember that the English sound is a labio-dental and not a bilabial fricative (as its Spanish counterpart, for instance). It has exactly the same characteristics as the Turkish sound. It is spelt with the letter v. (Exceptionally, by ph in, nephew and f in of). Certain English nouns voice their labio-dental final fricative when they pluralize displaying the alternance f / v: eg leaf / leaves, wife / wives. Derivational affixes can also voice the final consonant: life / l...
