ALLOPHONES

1.

Devoicing [ o ]
It occurs when there is a lenis segment preceded or followed by a pause or fortis
segment.

2.

Aspiration [ h]
Voice onset delay. Whenever there is a fortis plosive followed by a syllabic or nonsyllabic vocoid in stressed position, the air is released abruptly causing aspiration.
When /s/ is followed by /p, t, k/ in the same syllable, there is unaspiration.

3. Pre-aspiration (Spanish): when a /s/ is followed by a fortis plosive or lenis fricative, the
aspiration is produced immediatelly after the /s/.
4.

Germination [ ]
The offset of the first segment and the onset of the second one dissappear.
It can occur when there are two homorganic plosives together, a plosive followed by its
homorganic affricate or a plosive preceded or followed by its homorganic nasal.

5. Release masking [ >]

The offset of the first segment is missing.
It can occur between non-homorganic plosives or a nasal and its homorganic plosive.
6.

Lateral release [ L]
The third stage is produced laterally.
Homorganic lateral release: /t, d/ + /l/
Non-homorganic lateral release: /p, b, k, g/ + /l/

7.

Nasal release [ N]
The third stage is nasal, and it can occur between a plosive and its homorganic or nonhomorganic nasal.

8.

Non-audible release [ ]
In words ended in a fortis plosive, the third stage may not be pronounced.

9.

Pre-fortis clipping [ ] [ ]
Fortis cause a reduction in the length of the previous long vowel or diphthong.

10. Sillabicity [ ] [ ' ]

Lateral or nasal segments function as syllabic contoids when they are in a syllable
surrounded by non-syllabic contoids only.
11. Glottal reinforcement [ ? ]kftbl
It is generally ?k or ?p.
V + fortis plosive + contoid.
12. Lip rounding [ W]
Whenever there is a plosive followed by vowel no. 7 or no. 9, or the approximant /w/,
the plosive is produced with rounded lips.
13. Nasalization [ ~ ]
When a vowel or diphthong is surrounded by nasals it is released through the nasal
cavity. It can occur within a word or at word boundaries.

14. Levelling: in cases in which there are two movements of the tongue, there is a
tendency to level the triphthong by eliminating the segment in the middle.
15. Monophthongization: when we eliminate the first two segments of the diphthong and
we have only the /a:/ left.
16. Neutralization: it can affect a whole word or just a segment. It also occurs to vowels no.
1 and no. 9.
17. Assimilation: changing one segment for another one to make it more similar to the
previous or following one, and therefore easier to pronounce. It can be either
allophonic or phonemic, progressive or regressive, and of place of articulation or voice.
18. Coalescent assimilation: two segments coalesce to form a new one. It occurs between
the /t/ or the /d/ when they are followed by the /j/, and the resulting phonemes are the
/t/ or the /d/ respectively.
19. Historical assimilation: in Old English the ending -ure was pronounced with the
diphthong //.
20. Similitude [ + ] [ - ]
At word boundaries. Depending on the following sound, the velar segments will be
produced forward or backwards. Also, the /r/ sound retracts the alveolar segments.
21. Labialization [ w]
Within words or at word boundaries. /p, t , m, h, z, l, j/ + /u:, , w, /
22. Compression: elimination of a syllable.
23. Elision: in some words, some phonemes are not pronounced.
24. Historical elision: in Old English the /l/ and the /k/ were pronounced in words such as
half or knee. There is also elision of the // when the resulting cluster is acceptable,
and elision of the /h/ when it is preceded by consonantal segments.
25. Dentalization [ ]
When the alveolar plosives, the /n/ , the /m/ or the /l/ are followed by a dental fricative,
the first segment is produced dentally.
26. Catenation: at word boundaries. When there is a fortis plosive followed by a vowel
or /h/, there may be a slight aspiration.
27. Juncture: when two words are pronounced together, there may be confussion about
which words are they.
28. Linking processes: when there is a front closing diphthong or front vowel followed by a
word beginning with a syllabic vocoid, a [ j] may be used as a linker. Back closing
diphthongs or back vowels may be linked by [ w]. Words ending in a vowel followed by
a word beginning with a vowel are linked by [r] when there is a /r/ in spelling (though
sometimes it is produced even if it is not in spelling).
29. Dark l
At word ending, produced with a second articulation.

1. Devoicing
2. _ Aspiration
3. _ Pre fortis clipping
4. _ Release masking
5. _ Gemination
6. _ Lateral release
7. _ Nasal release
8. _ Dentalization
9. _ Linking
10. _ Elision
11. _ Nasalization
12. _ Labialization
13. _ Velarization
14. _ Labiodentalization
15. _ Syllabicity
16. _ Similitude
17. _ Omission of the onset
18. _ Neutralization
19. _ Non-audible release
20. _ Assimilations
21. _Glottal Reinforcement