A contrastive analysis of consonants of English and Turkish languages

[z] is the voiced, lenis, alveolar fricative that corresponds to the voiceless [s]. It is quite similar to its Turkish counterpart, but it plays a more important role in English as it is one of the main allomorphs of the plural morpheme (distributed after a voiced consonant or a vowel). Like its voiceless counterpart, [z] is a hissing sound, produced with a high-pitched friction.

Because when these sounds are articulated the air is expelled through a narrow groove along the middle of the blade they are also called grooved fricatives. Together with the more retracted, alveo-palatal fricatives and with the affricate sounds they are called sibilants. The sound is spelt [z] It is often spelt s when the sound does not occur in initial positon e.g. nose, easy, desire), and, exceptionally, tz in tzar. Similarly, when it marks the plural of nouns ending in a voiced sound (e.g. boys, balls, ribs) or when it is the voiced allomorph of the 3rd person singular present indicative of verbs ending in a voiced sound (e.g. plays, calls, adds) the spelling is s. Exceptionally, the sound can be spelt double ss in words like dissolve, possess. [Ѓз] is an alveopalatal, voiceless, fortis fricative consonant. The uttering f this sound should not raise any particular problems for Turkishs as its articulatory features are similar to those of its counterpart in Turkish. The blade of the tongue is raised against the region behind the alveolar ridge and the air is forced out through a groove a little wider than in the case of [s], its more fronted counterpart. [*] is distributed in all three main positions in the word. It is often spelt sh in words like shoe, cushion or push. It can also be spelt s (e.g. sure, sugar) or ss (e.g. pressure, mission) or ci (ancient, delicious), sci (conscious) ce (ocean), si (pension, mansion), ti (tuition, retribution). It is a variant of [sj] in words like issue, tissue. In words of

French origin the sound is spelt ch: champagne, charade, charge, moustache, attache. The same spelling is used in proper names like Charlotte, Chicago, Chicoutimi, Michigan.

[d?] is the voiced counterpart of [t?]. It is an alveopalatal, voiced, lenis fricativeand is pronounced very much like the corresponding sound in Turkish. It is not, however, a very common sound in English as it occurs mainly in loan (particularly French) words. It is never distributed in initial position, but it can occur in medial (pleasure, treasure, measure) or final position (garage, prestige). It can be spelt either s when followed by u (visual) or i (decision), or z if followed by u (seizure) or ge (massage, espionage). In words like casual the alternative pronunciation [zj] is possible, while in other cases the fricative is replaced by the affricate [d] (e.g. garage).

[h] is a glottal fricative in English, a voiceless, fortis sound produced by letting the air pass freely through the mouth during expiration. Thus, its place of articulation in the glottal region is more retracted than in the case of the Turkish sound which is rather a velar sound, closer to the variant occurring in Scottish English: loch [lox]. A palatalized version is used when the sound is followed by a palatal: humane [hjume?n]. Unlike in most Romance languages h freely occurs in initial position in English: home, hiss, hut“ Dropping the h's “ is even considered a sign of lack of education. In a small number of words the sound is, however, dropped even in standard English in both in initial and medial position: hour, heir, honour, honest, vehicle, annihilate. It is also common (even for educated people to drop the initial h in unstressed (weak) forms of the personal pronouns (he, him) possessives (his, her) or the verb have h is also silent in final position in the interjection ah or in words like shah. The conservative spelling of English has preserved the letter h after r in words of Greek origin where no h sound or aspiration is heard nowadays (rhapsody, rhetoric, rheumatism, rhinal, rhinoceros, rhombus, rhyme, rhythm).

D. The English Affricates

The affricate phonemes of English are [t?*] and [d?]. They differ from their Turkish counterparts as they can be distributed in all three basic positions (including the word-final one) and can be followed by any vowel. Therefore, they are far less palatalized than the corresponding Turkish sounds that must be followed by either e or i. Even when they are followed by i and e the English affricates differ considerably from the corresponding sounds in Turkish. In order to realize the difference between the English sounds and their Turkish counterparts it is enough to compare the English word chin to the Turkish cin or the English gem to the Turkish gem.

[t?] is a voiceless, fortis, alveo-palatal sound produced with the blade of the tongue raised against the region just behind the alveolar ridge. As in the case of any affricate sound, its articulation starts like that of a plosive - in our case [t] - by completely blocking the outgoing airstream and then continues by a gradual release of the air, as for a fricative [*]. The very symbol used in the

IPA alphabet for the notation of the sound suggests the mixed nature of the affricate. We should make a difference, however, between the affricate proper (pitch [p?t*] and the sequence of the plosive and the fricative [t] + [*] (courtship [k]:t*?p], right shoe [ra?t*u:]). The phoneme is represented graphically by ch: (charm, chinchilla, rich) or tch (kitchen, bitch) or by t followed by u (creature, culture) when the plosive is palatalized. In words like habitual, sanctuary the pronunciation with an affricate is a variant of [t?]. Exceptionally, we can have ce or cz as graphic representations of the sound in (violon) cello or Czech.

[d?] is the voiced counterpart of [t?], being an alveo-palatal, voiced, lenis, affricate consonant. It can be rendered graphically by j in either initial or medial position in words like justice, John, rejoice, pyjamas, by ge in all basic positions: gesture, agent, sage, by gi in initial and medial position: giraffe, rigid; and gy in initial position: gymnastics. In certain words it can be spelt d followed by u: gradual, individual, procedure/al. In all these cases, however, there is an alternative pronunciation [d?]. In a number of proper names or common nouns originating in proper names ch is read [d?]: Norwich, Greenwich, S/sandwich. Another spelling can be dg in words like ridge or edge.

1.2 Classification of Turkish consonant system

Turkish, the westernmost of the Turkic languages, belongs to the Turkic branch of the Altaic language family. It is the largest of the Turkic languages in terms of number of speakers. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Turkish and other Oghuz languages such as Azerbaijani, Turkmen, and Qashqai. Turkey occupies a central geographical meeting point between Asia and Europe. Anatolia, the western region of Asian Turkey, is one of the oldest inhabited areas of the world. It is thought that the first human inhabitants appeared in Anatolia as far back as 7,500 BC. The Ottoman Empire, established by the Oghuz Turks of western Anatolia and ruled by the Osmanli dynasty, ruled the areas surrounding the Mediterranean Sea from 1281 to 1922. It was defeated by the Allies during World War I, and its territories were colonized by the victors. After the Turkish War of Independence (1918-1923), the Republic of Turkey was founded from the remnants of the fallen empire by Mustafa Kemal, who was later given the name of Ataturk 'Father of the Turks'. He was responsible for a wide range of reforms that helped to modernize Turkey, including far-reaching language reforms that concentrated on replacing the Arabic script with the Roman one, and purging the language of Arabic and Persian words Ishjatms, N. (1996), "Nomads In Eastern Central Asia", History of civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 2, UNESCO Publishing. Turkish is the official language of Turkey, where it is spoken by 46.3 million people. It is also the official language of Cyprus along with Greek. The rest of the Turkish speakers live in 35 different countries in Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Americas (Ethnologue). Most of these countries were part of the territory governed by the Ottoman Empire. The worldwide population of speakers of Turkish is estimated at around 51 million (Ethnologue). Language and language reform are hot political issues in Turkey with an ongoing battle between supporters of a traditional lexicon and those who support a modern, turkified one with a large number of borrowings from western European languages. Religious publications have not been as deeply affected by language reform as secular literature. They continue to use a form of Turkish that relies on Arabic and Persian vocabulary and syntax International Phonetic Association (1999). "Turkish", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet.. The resurgence of Islam in the 1990s has led to the reintroduction of many Islamic words into modern spoken Turkish. Modern standard Turkish is based on the Istanbul dialect Malone, J. L. (1982). Generative phonology and Turkish rhyme. Turkish has 20 consonant phonemes. There are no consonant clusters at the beginning of words. Stops, fricatives, and affricates are devoiced in final position, e.g., kitap 'book' (in the nominative case), kitab'book' (in the accusative case).

We can divide Turkish consonants into two categories:

1. Voiceless consonants: c, f, h, k, p, s, ю, t

2. Voiced consonants: all the others

The variable consonants are: t/d, p/b, c/c.

Consonant change 1: concerns the initial consonant of newly added suffixes beginning in t/d or c/c:

End of word is voiceless => t or c

End of word is a vowel => d or c

End of word is voiced => d or c

Examples:

Sut (milk) + cu/cu => sutcu (milkman); the suffix begins in c because sut has a voiceless end consonant.

Kahve (coffee) + ci/ci => kahveci (coffee house keeper); the suffix begins in c because kahve ends by a vowel.

Ev (house) + te/de => evde (in the house); the suffix begins in d because ev has a voiced end consonant.

Consonant change 2: final consonant of preceding word (or suffix) changes when a new suffix is added:

When immediately followed by a suffixed vowel, c->c; t->d; p->b

When immediately followed by a suffixed consonant, c->c; d->t; b->p

Example:

Aрac (tree) ends with a з. If we add the -ta suffix we'll get aрacta (in the tree). If we add the -э suffix we'll get aрacэ.

Table 3. Consonant phonemes of Standard Turkish

Bilabial

Labiodental

Dental

Alveolar

Postalveolar

Palatal

Velar

Glottal

Plosives

p

b

t

d

c

j

k

?

Nasals

m

n

Fricatives

f

v

s

z

?

?

?

h

Affricates

?

?

Tap

r

Approximant

j

Lateral approximants

l

l

sh in shop

s in measure

c

sh in sheen

c - j

no equivalents in English

no equivalent in English

t

ch in cheap

d

j in jeep

l

l in bull

G - g - Always a hard 'g' as in 'got'. Never soft.

G - g - Not exactly a consonant, it rather distinguishes properties of the vowel it follows. When following a member of the 'dark' vowels (a, o, u, ?) it lengthens the vowel, causing it to be held for two beats instead of one. This is not the same as stress, but rather like the difference between 'saw off' and 'soft': the former 'aw' sound is held for twice the time of the latter. When following a member of the 'light' vowels (e, i, o, u) it becomes a gliding 'i' sound. The phoneme / ? / usually referred to as yumusak g ("soft g"), g in Turkish orthography, actually represents a rather weak front-velar or palatal approximant between front vowels. It never occurs at the beginning of a word, but always follows a vowel. When word-final or preceding another consonant, it lengthens the preceding vowel.^[21]

The sounds [c], [?] and [l] are in complementary distribution with [k], [g] and [?], the former occurring with front vowels and the latter with back vowels. These allophones are not distinguished in the orthography, in which both series are written <k>, <g> and <l>. When a vowel is added to nouns ending with postvocalic <k>, the <k> becomes <g> by consonant alternation.

Turkish orthography is highly phonetic and a word's pronunciation is always completely identified by its spelling. The following table presents the Turkish letters, the sounds they correspond to in International Phonetic Alphabet and how these can be approximated more or less by an English speaker Malone, J. L. (1988b). Underspecification theory and Turkish rhyme. Phonology.

The earliest known Turkish alphabet is the Orkhon script. In general, Turkic languages have been written in a number of different alphabets including Cyrillic, Arabic, Greek, Armenian, Latin and some other Asiatic writing systems.

The current 29-letter Turkish alphabet, used for the Turkish language, was established by the Law on the Adoption and Implementation of the Turkish Alphabet, numbered 1353,^[1] in Turkey on November 1, 1928, as a vital step in the cultural part of Ataturk's Reforms.^[2] Replacing the earlier Ottoman Turkish script, the script was created as an extended version of the Latin alphabet at the initiative of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Table 4.

Letter	IPA	English approximation	Letter	IPA	English approximation
B	b	b	As b in bat	M	m	m	As m in man
C	c	d?	As j in job	N	n	n	As n in not
C	c	t?	As ch in chat	P	p	p	As p in put
D	d	d	As d in dog	R	r	?	As r in rat
F	f	f	As f in far	S	s	s	As s in sand
G	g	g	As g in gap	S	s	?	As sh in she
G	g	:	Soft, lengthens preceding vowel	T	t	t	As t in top
H	h	h	As h in hot	V	v	v	As v in valve
J	j	?	As g in montage	Z	z	z	As z in zip
K	k	k	As c in cat
L	l	l	As l in let

Distinctive features

Note that dotted and dotless I are separate letters, each with its own uppercase and lowercase form. I is the capital form of ?, and I is the capital form of i. (In the original law establishing the alphabet, the dotted I came before the undotted I; now their places are reversed [Yaz?m K?lavuzu].) The letter J, however, uses a tittle in the same way English does, with a dotted lowercase version, and a dotless uppercase version.Optional circumflex accents can be used with "a", "i" and "u" to disambiguate words with different meanings but otherwise the same spelling, or to indicate palatalization of a preceding consonant (for example, while "kar" /kar/ means "snow", "kar" /car/ means "profit"), or long vowels in loanwords, particularly from Arabic. These are seen as variants of "a", "i", and "u" and are becoming quite rare in modern usage.

Status of Q, W, X

The Turkish alphabet has no Q, W or X. Instead, these are transliterated into Turkish as K, V, and KS, respectively. The 1928 Law 1353 enforced usage of only the Turkish letters on official documents like birth certificates, marriage documents, and land registers;^[1] the 1982 Constitution explicitly retains this law.^[5] In practice, the requirement of using the Turkish alphabet in state registers has made it impossible to register some Kurdish names exactly as they are rendered in Kurdish orthography, which includes q, w, and x. The families can give their children Kurdish names, but these names cannot include these letters and are required to use the aforementioned transliterations. Many Kurds have applied to the courts seeking to change their names to specifically include the letters q, w, and x.^[6] A similar situation exists in Europe where many people with Turkish names reside.^[7] Many Turkish names include g, u, s, ?, o, c, and I, some of which are unavailable in local official alphabets, depending on the country of residence.

In Turkish the spelling of the words is changed when the pronunciation changes. Generally this does not happen in English, when we change the pronunciation we do not change the spelling. In fact we often change the spelling when the pronunciation is the same so that we can recognize the meaning Malone, J.L. (1988b). Underspecification theory and Turkish rhyme. Several more phenomena need to be understood from the beginning. They are complications, but are almost always regular. One is voicing assimilation: the voiced stop d in a suffix becomes voiceless t immediately after a voiceless consonant p t k c f s s h. So kitap book gives kitapta in the book and kitapt?r it is a book, and cocuk child gives cocuktan from the child, and genc young gives genctir s/he is young.

The second is related to this. As with many languages, you can't get voiced stops b d g c at the end of a word: they become voiceless p t k c (kitap is from Arabic kitab). But when a vowel suffix is added, they change to the voiced forms. So with the genitive case ending, we get kitab?n of the book and gencin of the young one. With k the change is not to its ordinary voiced equivalent g but the soft (and now silent) g, as in cocugun of the child.

Thirdly, Turkish does not like two vowels to come together, so when a vowel-initial suffix is attached to a vowel-final word, a consonant is interposed. Which one depends on the ending: the genitive in ~ ?n ~ un ~ un takes -n-, as in kuyunun of the well, kedinin of the cat. The dative e ~ a and the accusative i ~ ? ~ u ~ u take -y-, as in kediye to the cat. The third person possessive is the same as the accusative after a consonant, but has the interposed consonant -s- after a vowel: yolu gordum I saw the village, yolu her/his/its village, but kuyuyu gordum I saw the well, kuyusu her/his/its well.

With other suffixes the form after a vowel is shorter than that after a consonant: such as the possessive, -m in kuyum my well and with an extra vowel in cocugum my child.

A number of words can easily show this-meet vs meat, feet vs feat, right vs write, main vs mane, sea vs see, and many more.

For example, if English were written phonetically, the word does should be spelt duz. Turkish however being a phonetically written language will make these changes in spelling Goldsmith, J. A. (1990). Autosegmental and metrical phonology.

If the word ends in an hard consonant ( c f h k p s s t ) then the following rules apply: k < g t < d c < c p < b f < v. Adding a suffix beginning with a vowel to a word changes the last letter of the word itself to its soft version as above Adding a suffix beginning with a consonant changes the suffix itself to its hard version. -de < -te -den < -ten and Past Tense -di < -ti

The reason for the changes in pronunciation are only for ease of speaking and are only concerned with consonants which have voiced or "hard" and unvoiced or "soft" equivalents. The word for letter is mektup, but my letter is mektubum, the terminal -p has changed to -b - see equivalent chart below. This is simply because it is easier to pronounce and in Turkish the spelling must reflect this change for the rules of phonetics to operate.

Hard and Soft Letter Equivalents

p equivalent to bf equivalent to v

с equivalent to сs no equivalent -

t equivalent to ds no equivalent -

к equivalent to gh no equivalent -

The last three - s, 5, h - do not have a unvoiced form, as they are not voiced consonants, but they do affect the added suffix as they are considered as hard consonants:

nefis - delicious - becomes - nefistir - it is (certainly) delicious - not nefisdir. sabah - morning - becomes - sabahtan - from morning - not sabahdan gunes - sun - becomes - gunesten - from the sun - not gunesden.

Whenever -k terminates a word it nearly always changes to soft -g when suffixes beginning in a vowel are affixed to that word. The exceptions where no change is made are very few and will not be discussed here.

Words ending in -K change to -G- when a vowel is addedConsonant Mutation Examples

kopek - dog kopegim - my dog

bacak - leg bacagin - your leg

topuk - ankle topugu - his ankle

bilek - wrist bilegimiz - our wrists

gozluk - spectacles gozlugunuz - your spectacles

durak - bus stopduraga - to the bus stop

gorecek - will seegorecegim -1 shall see

yaptik - we did yaptigimiz - that which we did

bardak - glass (tumbler)bardagi - his glass

The consonant change from -k to soft -g- when adding suffixes is the most widespread mainly because so many Turkish words end in a terminal -k

If the word ends in -nk. Then the terminal -k changes directly to a hard -g as it is totally impossible to utter the letter cluster -ng plus an added vowel. Examples where terminal -nk changes to -ng when adding a vowel

denk - bale, equation becomesdengim - my bale

ahenk - harmony, accordbecomesahengi - its harmony

kepenk - shutterbecomeskepenginiz - your shutter

renk - color becomesrengimiz - our colour

Some of the other consonants which change to their soft form in similar fashion are as follows:

-p changes to -b in front of suffixed vowels

-c changes to -c in front of suffixed vowels

-t changes to -d in front of suffixed vowels

Further Examples of Consonant Change Further Consonant Mutation Examples

kitap - book kitabin - your book

ogut - advice ogudiim - my advice

tat - tastetadi - its taste

ilac-medicine ilaci - his medicine

agac - tree agacin - the tree's

The general rule is that single syllable words do not soften their final hard consonants in line with the general rule, hence:Hard Roots - Single Syllable Words

ак - whiteaki - the white/his white

at - horseati - the horse/his horse

ek - additioneki - the addition/its addition

et - meateti - the meat/his, her, its meat

goc - migrationgocu - the migration

ip - ropeipi - rope

kac? - how many? kacinci? - which one?

kok - rootkokii - the root/its root

ok - arrowoku - the arrow/his arrow

ot - grassotu - the grass/its grass

sac - hairsagi - the hair/his, her hair

sap - handlesapi - the handle/its handle

sue - faultsucu - the fault/his,her, its fault

siit - milksutij - the milk/his, her its milk

tic - threeiicu - the three/trio

But of course there are some exceptions to this rule where a single syllable word does take on its soft form when adding a vowel suffix:Soft Roots - Single Syllable Words

but - thigh budu - the thigh/his,her,its thigh

dip - bottom/base dibi - the bottom/the base/its bottom

сок - a tot/much/very cogu - the lot/his, her, its lot

gok - skygogii - the sky/its sky

кар - vessel kabi - the vessel/his vessel

kurt - worm/wolfkurdu - the worm, the wolf/his wolf

uc - point/tip/enducu - the point/his, her, its point

yurt - tent yurdu - the tent, the village

Some Notes about Consonants in Turkish

Words can not end with the soft consonants - b, c, d, g

Word must end in the equivalent hard forms p, c, t, к in order to finish the pronunciation without continuity thus helping the listener to determine word breaks in conversation.

Turkish has changed the English import of the word - Pub (public house) into a Turkish version of the word - Pup - which ends in the eqivalent hard consonant-p. So -Sahil Pup - has been written for- Sahil Pub (Beach Pub).

For example - kebab - is wrong - kebap- is correct- (Although the original form of the word - kebap-is kebab - in Arabic.)

Similarly the name - Mehmed - is wrong - Mehmet - is correct.

However there are a few words which do end in soft consonants such as - ad, od, sac - simply to make their meaning recognizable from similar word that have a hard consonant at the end. This little group of words is an exception to the general rule that words always end in a Hard Consonant.

Examples:

ad (isim) - first name (noun) and at (binek hayvam) - horse (riding animal)

od (ate§) - fire and ot (bitki) - grass (plant)

sac (yassi demir) - sheet iron and sac (kil) - hair (bristle)

Among Turkish consonants, the so-called soft G (g) and R cause the greatest difficulty in utterance. The soft G has been the centre of debates among linguists as to whether it can be counted as a separate letter. For example, Lewis comments on the Turkish orthography stating that g has no sound at all between certain vowels or may have the sound of 'y' between certain vowels, and after some vowels before a following consonant.

However, it would be wrong to say that g has no sound at all between certain vowels, as this letter has a specific function each time it is used. Lewis states that g is a concession to the traditional spelling of Turkish in the Arabo-Persian alphabet, G and GH Lewis, Geoffrey (1953). Teach Yourself Turkish. English Universities Press. . Medial or final GH becomes g.... This g whether in borrowings or in native words, though audible as a 'Northumbrian burr' of varying intensity in dialect, serves in standard Turkish to lengthen the preceding vowel, a following vowel being swallowed up.

He goes on to say that between O and A, or O and U, it may be heard as a weak 'v' or 'w' and adds that g in conjunction with front vowels is heard as a weak 'y'. While all these statements do have a grain of truth in them, the letter g does more than serve to lengthen the preceding vowel. The following list of examples of words with g aims to clarify the function of g in each case:

Table 5

Word without g	Word with g	How g% changes sound of word
ar? /ar?/ (bee)	agr? (pain)	/a:hrh?/ - A lengthened, R aspirated, while upper and lower lip move toward one another.
erik /er?k/ (plum)	egri (crooked, bent)	/ejr?/ g heard like weak Y.
	ege (file - kind of tool)	First E aspirated, thus /ehe/.
?l?man /?l?man/ (mild)	?gr?p (kind of fishing net)	/?:r?p/: first ? is more voiced followed by g.
il /?l/ (city)	igne (needle)	/i:hne/ - i is lengthened and aspirated.
	oglak (ram)	/o:lak/ - O lengthened as lower lip moves forward.
	ogul (son)	/o:h?l/ - O lengthened and aspirated as lower lip moves forward.
oksuz /?ksyz/(orphan)	ogretmen (teacher)	/?:retmen/ O lengthened and R after g more voiced.
un /?n/ (flour)	ugultu (humming noise)	/u:uhlt?/ - second U lengthened and a kind of following aspiration.
	ugras (a struggle)	/u:hra?/ - U lengthened, lips rounded.
un /yn/ (fame)	zugurt (spendthrift)	/zyyhrt/ second U with following aspiration.

Last but not least, the consonant R can also cause problems for learners of Turkish. In initial position the letter R has the sound /r/, in medial position it produces a rolling sound. When R is in final position, foreign learners hear it as /?/. It is, however, not a /?/ sound but an R that produces a heavy aspiration or even a whisper - more like a fricative or even a 'laryngeal'.

1.3 Summary

All sounds are devided into three major categories: vowels, consonants and glides. A consonant is a speech sound while pronouncing which the organs of speech form a restricted obstruction or no obstruction to the airflow.

Most consonants are articulated with greater constriction, usually creating more accoustic noise han vowels.

In the English language there are 24 consonants and they are classified according to 4 principles.

I. According to the type of obstruction and the manner of noise production.

II. According to the active organ of speech and the place of obstruction.

III. According to the work of the vocal cords and the force of articulation.

IV. According to the position of the soft palate.

They are usually classified by the manner of articulation, place of articulation and voicing.

Consonants may be voiced and voiceless, and oral or nasal. They are produced at various places of articulation: labial, dental, alveolar, alvelarpalatal, palatal, velar, and glottal. At the place of articulation, the airstream is modified by different manners of articulation and the resulting sounds are plosives, fricatives, median, lateral or affricates.

Turkish has 20 consonant phonemes. There are no consonant clusters at the beginning of words. Stops, fricatives, and affricates are devoiced in final position, e.g., kitap 'book' (in the nominative case), kitab'book' (in the accusative case).

Consonants may be voiced and voiceless, and oral or nasal. They are produced at various places of articulation: labial, labiodental, alveolar, postalveolar, palatal, velar, and glottal. At the place of articulation, the airstream is modified by different manners of articulation and the resulting sounds are fricatives, tap, lateral approximant, semivowel or affricates.

english turkish consonant language

Chapter 2. General similarities and differences of the consonant sounds in English and Turkish

Consonants are made with air stream that meets an obstruction in the mouth or nasal cavities. That is why in the production of consonant sounds there is a certain degree of noise.

Consonants are the bones of a word and give it its basic shape R. T. Oehrle (eds.), Language sound structure: studies in phonology presented to Morris Halle by his teacher and students.. English accents differ mainly in vowels, the consonants are more or less the same wherever English is spoken. So if your vowels axe not perfect you may still be understood by the listener, but. If the consonants are imperfect there may be some misunderstanding.

The sentence "W-l y- -nv-t- m-t- th- p-t-?" "Will you invite me to the party?" is easy for understanding even if all the vowel letters would be left out. But if we leave all the consonant letters out ; "-i -ou i--i-e -e -o --e -a--y" it is impossible to make any sense out of it. Thus we see that there are good reasons for beginning the course of pronunciation with consonants.

We would like to find similarities and differences between English and Turkish consonant systems.

1) First we would like to examine some similarities between English and Turkish consonant sounds.

[b] is a lenis bilabial stop in English. It is fully voiced in positions between voiced sounds, as in labour, symbol, rub out, while in initial and final positions it is partially or completely devoiced, as in big, blow, rib, ebb. Note mute <b> in limb, thumb, comb, etc.,-and debt, subtle, doubt.

[b] is a plosive labial stop in Turkish. It is fully voiced in positions between voiced sounds, as in baba father, beraber together, while in initial and final positions it is partially or completely devoiced, as in bin a thousand, bir the number one. There is no mute <b> in Turkish.

Stops are bilabial [p, b], produced with both lips pressed together; forelingual, apical alveolar [t, d], produced with the tip of the tongue against the teeth ridge; backlingual, velar [k, g] produced with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate.

[p, t, k] are strong or fortis as they are pronounced with more muscular energy and a stronger breath effort than [b, d, g] which are weak or lenis.

[b, d, g] may be fully voiced in word initial position before a vowel as in bag, dog, got, gelmek to come, bati west and durak bus stop or in intervocalic positions as in rubber, leader, eager. In these cases the vocal cords are drawn together and vibrate.

In word final position they are partly devoiced: [b. d, g] as in rob [rob], bed [bed], log. [p, t, k] are voiceless as the vocal cords are kept apart and do not vibrate Hooper, Joan Bybee. 1976. An Introduction to Natural Generative Phonology..

[p, b] occur in word initial, word medial and word final positions, [p] spelt "p" as in pin, pane, capable, lip, para money, kapi door, [b] spelt "b, bb" as in big, rubber, sob, tabii naturally, bas head.

[p, b] are occlusive, plosive, bilabial; [p] is strong and voiceless, [b] is weak and voiced, in final position it is partly devoiced.

Articulation. 1. The lips are firmly kept together.

2.The soft palate is raised and the air coming into the mouth stops for some time and then breaks the obstruction with a slight explosion.

The vocal cords do not vibrate when [p] is produced. For [b] they are tense kept together and vibrate when [b] occurs before vowels or in intervocalic positions, eg begin, rubber, bayan a lady.

The breath effort is very strong for [p], for [b] it is weak.

Recommendation. Press your lips together and push the air through the mouth breaking the obstruction made by the lips.

[t?] <ch tch t> is a fortis, voiceless, palato-alveolar affricate in English., as in cheese, watch, nature, righteous, question.

[c] is a fortis, voiceless, alveolar fricative in Turkish, as in cabuk quick, fast.

[d] is a lenis apical stop in English. It is fully voiced between voiced sounds, as in leader, London, endways, while in initial and final positions it is partially or completely devoiced, as in do, dry, bid, rubbed. It is most often alveolar, but may be dental before a dental fricative, as in width.

[d] is a plosive alveolar stop. It is also fully voiced between voiced sounds in Turkish like in English as in kedi cat, ada island, merhaba hello. While in initial and final positions it is partially or completely devoiced, as in od fire.

[f] is <f ff ph gh> is a fortis, voiceless, labio-dental fricative, as in fork, off, physics, enough.

[f] is a fortis, voiceless, labial fricative as in faiz interest (resulting from finance), fakat but, fuzla too much, etc. It sounds same as in English.

[f, v] are constrictive fricative, labio-dental; [f] is strong and voiceless; [v] is weak and voiced, in the final position it is partly devoiced. [f, v] are labio-dental, produced with the lower lip against the edge of the upper teeth;

Articulation. 1. The lower lip is very close to the edge of the upper front teeth, thus forming an incomplete obstruction. When the air goes through the narrowing it causes slight friction.

2. For [f] the vocal cords do not vibrate; there may be some vibration accompanying [v] when it occurs in word initial positions as in vast or between vowels as in never, cover, over.

3. For [f] the air force is very strong.

Recommendation

1. Put the lower lip close to the edge of the upper front teeth and blow breath between them. For [f] the friction should be strong but not very noisy; for [v] it should be weak.

2. Keep the upper lip out of the way.

[k] <k с сk cc qu [kw] ch> is a fortis, voiceless, dorsal stop, as in kind, cake, clock, accord, conquer, stomach, chemist. The graphs <c cc> represent [k] before <a о u>. [k] is aspirated when syllable-initial, as in come, incur, according, cry, quick, and non-aspirated after /s/, as in skin.

[k] is a velar, voiceless, plosive stop as in kag?t paper, playing card, kalabal?k crowd, crowded, ыkarar decision. [k] is aspirated at the beginning of the word as in kardes brother, sister, family member.

[l] <l ll> is an alveolar lateral sonorant, as in let, light, yellow, fill, apple.

[l] is an alveolar lateral sonorant, as in lazim necessary, lisan language. The pronunciation is the same as in English.

[1] occurs in all word positions, spelt "1, 11", eq like, glad, tall, lisan language.

[1] is constrictive, lateral, forelingual, apical, alveolar.

Articulation. 1. The tip of the tongue is in firm contact with the alveolar ridge.

2. The soft palate is raised and the air goes freely to the mouth.

3. The sides of the tongue are lowered and the air can pass between them and the palate.

4. The vocal cords are brought together and vibrate. Recommendations. 1. Put the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge feeling a firm contact with it.

2. Push the air through the mouth.

[m] <m mm> is a bilabial nasal sonorant, as in me, summer, seem, comb, autumn; note that <m> may precede mute <b n>.

[m] is a labial nasal sonorant, as in конецформыначалоформыmahkeme court, mahvetmek to destroy, mavi blue, the color. [m] occurs in all word positions, spelt "m, mm, mb, mn", eg mean, summer, seam, comb, autumn

[m] is occlusive. nasal, bilabial.

Articulation. 1. The lips are firmly kept together.

2.The soft palate is lowered and the air goes through the nose.

3.The vocal cords vibrate. Recommendation. Press your lips together and push the air through the nose.

[n] <n nn> is an alveolar nasal sonorant, as in neat, knit, gnaw, snow, dinner, gone, open; note that <n> may be preceded by mute<kg>.

[n] is an alveolar nasal sonorant, as in nazil how, namaz prayer, natice result. [n] is occlusive nasal, forelingual, apical, alveolar.

Articulation.

1. The tip of the tongue is pressed against the alveolar ridge.

2. The soft palate is lowered and the air escapes through the nose. 3. The vocal cords vibrate.

Recommendation. Put the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge and push the air through the nose.

[p] <p pp> is a relatively strong, or fortis, voiceless bilabial stop. It is usually accompanied by aspiration when initial a stressed syllable,' as in pin, appear, impatient, play. Initially in an unstressed syllable and finally aspiration is relatively weak, as in polite, upper, lip. When [s] precedes [p] initially in a syllable, there is practically no aspiration, as in spin.

[p] <p pp> is a fortis, voiceless labial, plosive, relatively strong stop in Turkish. It is usually accompanied by aspiration when initial stressed syllable,' as in pahal? expensive. Initially in an unstressed syllable and finally aspiration is relatively weak, as in parmak, finger, patlak, a burst, a puncture.

[r] <r rr> is a post-alveolar lateral sonorant, as in red, write, tree, mirror, very.

[r] is a alveolar, flap, lateral sonorant, as in rahat peace and quiet, конецформыначалоформыreddetmek to refuse, to reject, resim picture.

[r] is constrictive, medial, forelingual, cacuminal, post-alveolar.

Articulation. 1. The tip of the tongue is held in a position near to but not touching the back of the alveolar ridge, the front part of the tongue is low and the back is rather high so that the tongue has a curved shape (cacuminal articulation).

The position of the lips is determined by that of the following vowel.

3.The soft palate is raised and the air flows quietly between the tip of the tongue, and the palate.

4. The vocal cords vibrate.

Recommendations 1. Put the tip of the tongue against the back of the alveolar ridge without touching it. If you touch the alveolar ridge with the tip of the tongue there will be a firm contact between them and the resulting sound is [1] but not [r]. Remember that [r] is a purely gliding sound with no sudden change, e.g. light -- right, low -- row, lock -- rock.

2. Keep the lips in the position for the following vowel, eg reach (spread lips), root (rounded lips).

3. Push the air through the mouth so that you could hear a smooth glide.

[s] <s ss с sc x [ks]> is a fortis, voiceless, alveolar fricative, as in so, pass, nice, science, axe.

[s] is a fortis, voiceless, alveolar fricative, as in saat clock, sadece only, sari yellow.

[t] <t tt d> is a fortis, voiceless, apical stop, as in take, Thames, Tliomas; it is spelt <d> in the inflection -ed after fortis consonants other than [t], e.g. jumped, looked. It is aspirated when initial in a stressed syllable, as in take, attend, obtain, try, and nonaspirated after [s], as in stone. The place of articulation is most often alveolar but it may be dental when a dental fricative follows, as in at this. In RP and most other accents the place of articulation is postalveolar when /r/ follows, as in true.

[t] is a fortis, voiceless, alveolar, plosive stop, as in tahmin an estimate, guess tahmin etmek, to guess takdim a presentation. It is aspirated when initial in a stressed syllable, as in конецформыначалоформыtehdit threat, tehdit etmek, to threaten, to menace tehlike danger.

[t, d] occur in word initial, word medial and word final positions

[t] -- spelt "t, tt, th, ed", eg take, attend, Thomas, jumped, put, takip a following.

[d] -- spelt "d, dd", eg dog, date, middle, leader, mad, raised, ada island.

[t, d] are occlusive, plosive, forelingual, apical, alveolar; [t] is strong and voiceless, [d] is weak and voiced, in final position it is partly devoiced.

[k, g] occur in word initial, word medial and word final positions, [k] -- spelt "k; c; cc + a, o, u; qu; ch", eg kite, card, accord, conquer, stomach, kadar as…as, kara black; [g] -- spelt "g; gg; gh; gu", eg garden, giggle, ghost, guard, gitmek to go.

Articulation. 1. The complete obstruction is made by the tip of the tongue firmly pressed against the middle of the alveolar ridge.

2.The soft palate is raised and the air coming into the mouth is trapped for a short time. Then it breaks the obstruction with a slight explosion.

3.The vocal cords do not vibrate when [t] is formed. For [d] they are drawn together and vibrate when it occurs before vowels or in intervocalic positions, eg done, ladder, tedavi medical treatment.

4. The breath effort for [t] is very strong, for [d] it is weak.

Recommendations.

1.Raise the back of the tongue to the soft palate so that you can feel a firm contact of them. Push the air from the lungs breaking the obstruction with a slight popping noise.

2.Make the sound [k] strong and aspirated, eg cool, calm.

The Turkish consonants [k, g] are produced in a similar way, but the breath effort for the Turkish [к] is not so strong as for the English [k] which is aspirated. In word final position only [k] is heard, eg barmak a finger, while the English [g] in final positions is partially devoiced, dog, dialogue.

[v] <v f ph> is a lenis labio-dental fricative, as in voice, of, nephew. It is fully voiced in medial positions between voiced sounds, as in ever, nephew, silver, and partially or completely devoiced initially and finally, as in voice, leave, of.

[v] is a lenis alveolar fricative, as in vaat promise, veri data.. It is fully voiced in medial positions between voiced sounds, as in tavuk chicken (hen), tedavi (medical) treatment, and partially or completely devoiced initially and finally, as in vermek to give.

[z] <s ss z zz x [gz] > is a lenis alveolar fricative, as in roses, scissors, zoo, dizzy, exact. It is fully voiced in word-medial positions, as m easy, thousand, husband, and partially or completely devoiced in word-initial and final positions, as in zeal, is, rose.

[z] is a lenis alveolar fricative, as in zahmet trouble, difficulty, zan guess, supposition. It is fully voiced in word-medial positions, as in guzel beautiful,taze fresh, and partially or completely devoiced in word-initial and final positions, as in basit simple. [s, z] are constrictive fricative, forelingual, apical alveolar, [s] is strong and voiceless, [z] is weak and voiced, in final position it is partially devoiced.

Articulation. 1. The tip of the tongue is close to the teeth ridge. The narrowing is round, because of the groove in the blade of the tongue.

The teeth are very close together.

The vocal cords do not vibrate when [s] is produced. For [z] they vibrate when it occurs before vowels or in intervocalic positions, eg zone, easy.

The friction for [s] is strong

Recommendations.

1. Put the tip and the blade of the tongue close to the alveolar ridge. The air should hit the tongue at the very centre of the teeth ridge. Push the air through the narrowing very quickly, so that the strong friction is heard. For [z] push it more slowly, so that the friction is weaker. Alternate strong and weak friction for [s-z].

2. Keep the teeth very close together.

2) Now it is time to examine some differences between English and Turkish consonants.

[c] is a voiceless, alveolar fricative like [s] in “pleasure”. E.g. genciz we are sick , gelecek s/he/it will come, calpack a hat.

[з] - is a fortis palatal-alveoalar fricative, sounds like [ch] as in the word "Turkish", e.g. зocuk child, genз young, genзtir s/he is young.

[dz] or [?] is a lenis palatal affricate, as in jam, gem, midget, suggest, adjacent, grandeur, soldier, Norwich. It is fully voiced in medial positions between voiced sounds, as in midget, urgent, agenda, major, and partially or fully devoiced in initial and final'positions, as in jest, ridge, age, change.

There are only two affricates in English: [?, ?]. In Turkish we have [?, ?]. They are occlusive-constrictives because a complete obstruction to the stream of air is formed and it is released slowly, with friction, [?, ?] are bicentral. They have two narrowings, both flat, the second focus being between the front part of the tongue and the hard palate (front secondary focus).

[?, ?] are palato-alveolar, forelingual apical.

[?] is strong (fortis), [?] is weak (lenis).

[?] is fully voiced in word initial position before a vowel or in intervocalic position, eg Jack, pigeon. In word final position it is partly devoiced [?], eg George, [tf] is voiceless in all positions.

[?, ?] are occlusive-constrictive, forelingual, apical, palato-alveolar, bicentral; [tf] is strong and voiceless, [?] is weak and voiced. In word final position it is partially devoiced.

Articulation. 1. The tip of the tongue touches the fcack part of the teeth ridge.

The front part of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate forming the front secondary focus (a flat narrowing).

The"soft palate is raised 50 that the ureatrris-trapped for a short time (because of the complete obstruction between the tongue-tip and the teeth ridge) then the obstruction is released slowly and the friction is heard.

4. The lips are slightly rounded.

[g] <g gg gh> is a lenis dorsal stop, as in go, juggling, ghost, guard; note mute <g> in gnaw, diaphragm, sign, etc. It is fully voiced between voiced sounds, as in eager, eagle, juggling, angry, while in initial and final positions it is partially or completely devoiced, as in go, dog, vague.

[g] is a velar plosive stop. It is always a hard 'g' as in gazete newspaper, gece night, gec late, gerek, necessary etc. It is never soft.

[g] - Not exactly a consonant, it rather distinguishes properties of the vowel it follows. When following a member of the 'dark' vowels (a, o, u, ?) it lengthens the vowel, causing it to be held for two beats instead of one. This is not the same as stress, but rather like the difference between 'saw off' and 'soft': the former 'aw' sound is held for twice the time of the latter. When following a member of the 'light' vowels (e, i, u) it becomes a gliding 'i' sound. This letter does not exist in the English alphabet.

[j] is a palatal sonorant ("semivowel"), as in yes, young, onion. It is often found in the cluster [ju:], spelt <u ew eu eau ue ui>, as in muse, new, beauty, suit.

[j] is a palatal approximant as in jandarma gendarme.

[h] <h wh> is a fortis, voiceless, glottal fricative, found only in syllable-initial positions (word-initially and word-medially), as in he, who, ahead, perhaps, manhood.

[h] is constrictive fricative, glottal, voiceless. As [h] occurs only in рrе-vocalic positions it is the sound of breath passing between the vocal cords and out of the mouth which is already held really for the following vowel: before [i:j the mouth is in position fur [i:], before [u:] it is ready for [u:] and so on; so there are many [h]-sounds in English because different-types of friction will be heard for it in the sequences [hi:], [ha:], [hu:] and others.

Recommendations. In order to make [h]-sounds, hold the mouth ready for the vowel and push a short gasp of breath by the lungs; breathe the air out weakly adding some slight fricative noise to the vowel.

[h] is a fortis, voiceless, glottal fricative in Turkish. /h/ is optionally deleted in fast speech in Turkish, but only in certain segmental contexts /h/ is optionally deleted before sonorant consonants fihrist ~ fi:rist index, tehlike ~ te:like danger, but not after them merhum merum the late, ilham ilam inspiration.

When /h/ is deleted from preconsonantal or final position, compensatory lengthening of the receding vowel occurs, as in kohne ~ ko:ne old.

/h/ is optionally deleted after voiceless stops as in huphe ~ hupe suspicion, ethem ~ etem proper name; and affricates methhul ~ methul unknown, but not before them as in kahpe ka:pe harlot, sahte sa:te counterfeit, ahthi a:thi cook.

/h/ is optionally deleted before and after voiceless fricatives as in mahsus ~ ma:sus special to, ishal ~ isal diarrhea, safha ~ safa step.

/h/ is optionally deleted intervocalically muhendis ~ muendis engineer, muhafaza ~ muafaza protection, as well as word-finally timsah ~ timsa crocodile, but not word-initially hava *ava `air'.

[?] <sh ch sch s ss t sc с х [ks]> is a fortis, voiceless, post-alveolar fricative, as in ship, machine, schedule, sure, assure, mansion, session, Russian, nation, conscience, special, ocean, luxury. It is spelt <s ss> before <u>, <s ss sc c> before <i>, and <c> before <e>. Therefore textbooks usually distinguish <ti si sci ci ce> as graphs for [s].

[?, ?] are constrictive fricative, forelingual, apical, palate-alveolar, bicentral; [?] is strong and voiceless, [?] is weak and voiced, in final position it is partially devoiced.

Articulation. 1. The tip of the tongue is close to the back part of the teeth ridge forming a flat narrowing.

The front part of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate, forming the front secondary focus, thus palatalizing the sounds.

The lips are neutral or slightly rounded.

The vocal cords do not vibrate when [?] is pronounced, for [?] they vibrate when it ccurs before vowels, eg pleasure.

Recommendations.

1.Start from [s], then put the tip of the tongue a bit backwards. Draw the breath inwards to check that the tip is in the right place. Keep this position and then raise the rest of the tongue to say the vowel [i], slightly round the lips and push the breath through strongly.