Chapter 8. Other phenomena in pronunciation of the English consonant sounds.

In this chapter we will look some aspects of English pronunciation, in particular what happens when phonemes meet.
8.1 Palatalization - the soothing of consonants upon the influence of following vowels. Palatalization is caused by raising the front of the tongue towards to the hard palate.
In English the most of consonants are pronounced without palatalization but hard. That’s obvious for Russian consonants. 
Russian  palatalized:                                     English non-palatalized:
[м’ил] - мил                                                      [mi:l] – meal
[н’ит’]  - нить                                                  [ni:t]  - neat
8.2. Lateral plosion - consonant [l] with the proceeded plosion alveolar consonant is pronounced with merging [mз:dʒiŋ]
Laterally exploded variants:
[litl]   - little
[midl] – middle
[gud lΛ] – good luck
8.3. Nasal plosion – the English stop consonants phonemes [p], [b], [t],[d],[k],[g] are used before the nasal sonorant [m],[n]. This is so because the explosion after the stop is produced by the air suddenly escaping through the nasal cavity at the moment when the soft palate is lowered to form the nasal consonant.
Help me [help mi]        ask me [ask mi]                  garden [ga:dn]
8.4. Loss of plosion – English occlusive consonant [p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [g] loose the plosion because of the following another occlusive consonant (stops) or affricates [tʒ], [dʒ].
Plosive variants:                                     plosionless variants:
paper [peipə]                                               act [ækt]
later [leitə]                                                step down [step daun]
cocoa [ koukou]                                        don’t joke [dount dʒouk]
again [ əﺍgein]                                           big cheese  [big ﺍtзi:z]

8.5. A “swallowed” sound. [l] using at the end if a word or syllable has a such definition. Pronouncing this sound the tongue is more in tension. It occurs in  well, old, help and call.
8.6. Homographs and homophones.
Pronunciation and spelling are closely tied. Here two basic types are presented.
Homographs are the words which have the same spelling, but with different pronunciations.
E.g.: W [w] - Why [wai], wind [wind]
H [h] – hand [hænd], here [hiə], hate [heit]
Homophones are words which have the same pronunciation, but have different spelling.
E.g.: write [rait], right [rait], there [ðe]
8.7. “Sibilants” are s-like sounds. In English, regular plurals, possessives, third person singular present verbs and contractions have sibilant ending.
E.g.:two roses[rowzez],he watches T [wat∫əz], the judge’s [ʤəʤəz]
–the word ends are pronounced [s] after the voiceless consonant ends.
E.g.: ships [ps], Dick’s houses [ks].
–the ending is pronounced [z] after the voiced consonant ends or glide [w,y].
E.g.:  good jobs [bz], buys [bayz].
–the th in words like  month, earth may be simplified.
E.g.: Months [nts],   the earth’s [rs].