Allophones

Aspiration

Aspirated [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ]

• Voiceless plosives /p, t, k/

• Aspirated before stressed vowels (in stressed syllables) or approximates (/w/, /j/, /l/, /r/)

• aspirated (but with weaker aspiration in unstressed syllables)

• [tʰ] - top, two, tick, tie, tube, tune, tuesday

  • true, train, try

• [pʰ]

  • peach, pit, place, prize, pick, pie, pack, puma, pupil, piano
  • plan, play, please
  • price, print, press

• [kʰ] - kick, kite

  • cube, queue, cute, come, account
  • click, claim, clue
  • crime, crop, crowd

Unaspirated [p, t, k]

• unaspirated after Voiceless fricatives /s, f, ʃ/ in a syllable-initial cluster

• unaspirated /p/, /t/, /k/ and unaspirated /b/, /d/, /g/ are sound kind of the same

• /s/

  • stack, steal, store, still, start, story, style
  • speech, spit, sport, spill, spy
  • screen, school, skill

• /f/

• (Speech is really SBEECH! - Dr Geoff Lindsey - https://youtu.be/U37hX8NPgjQ )

Unaspirated [k]

• quite [ˈkwaɪt],
• next [ˈnɛkst]
• like [ˈlaɪk]

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Allophones	desc	examples
[pʰ, tʰ, kʰ]	Aspirated before stressed vowels (in stressed syllables)	pie, tie, kite
[p, t, k]	Unaspirated or “soft” plosives before unstressed vowels & syllables	rapper, latter, hacker
[sp, st, sk]	Unaspirated or “soft” immediately after /s/	spill, still, skill
[p̚, t̚, k̚]	Unreleased airflow at word boundaries, or before another obstruent	rap, rat, rack; napsack, night rate, tick-tock

Plosives (סותמים)

Voiceless Bilabial Plosive /p/

Aspirated [pʰ] & Unaspirated [p]

see Aspiration

Unreleased [p̚]

• before silence - rap, lap, sheep,
• syllable-final position before a consonant - apt, napsack, update

Voiceless Alveolar Plosive /t/

Aspirated [tʰ] & Unaspirated [t]

see Aspiration

Unreleased [t̚]

• before consonant
  • what do - [what̚ do]
  • next word (it was, can’t go, didn’t like, eight weeks, might do, at work, won’t need, budget cut)
  • the same word (football, lately, atmosphere, Atlanta, outside, nightmare, atlas, butler)
• before silence - lap

Glottal stop [ʔ]

• Glottal stop before /n/

	IPA
eaten	/ˈiːt(ə)n/	[ˈiːʔn̩]
cotton	/ˈkɑt.ən/	[ˈkɑʔn̩]
certain	/ˈsɜrtn/	[ˈsɝʔn̩]
button
importent	/ɪm.ˈpɔɹ.tənt/	[ɪmˈpʰɔɹʔn̩t]
gotten	/ˈɡɑtn̩/	[ˈɡɑʔn̩]

 Voiced alveolar tap (flap) [ɾ]

• between a stressed syllable and an unstressed syllable (atom, smarter, butter, bottle, latter, native, matter, water [ˈwɔɾɚ])
• between two unstressed syllables (pocketed)
• Turns pairs of words such as into homophones of /t/ and /d/

		s
atom	Adam	[ˈæɾəm]
batter	badder
bitter	bidder
mettle	medal
liter	leader	[ˈliːɾɚ]
catty	caddy	[ˈkʰæɾi]

/t/ and /d/ dropped

• after /n/, when the t is unstressed
• winter, mental, counter, center, internet, wanted, twenty, importantly, painted, gentlemen
• sandwich

Voiceless velar plosive /k/

/l/

		ex
[l]	occurs before vowels and the consonant /j/
[ɫ] ^[[lˠ]] Dark L	occurs before consonants (except /j/)	bold, sold
	and at the end of words	pull, ball, cool
[l̥]	devoiced after aspirated /p, k/	play, plant, place, please
[l̪]	after interdental consonant	athlete, breathless,

symbol
[◌˺]	No audible release
[t̪]	Dental consonant

• ʰ -