PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
Segmental Aspects

Quoting Jones, the criterion defined as the place of articulation can be explained as “the point in the vocal tract where the obstruction to the airflow is made” (Jones, 2003, p. 35) or as “the place in the vocal tract where the sound is made, and which vocal organs are involved” (Crystal, 2011, p. 243), which means that it is important to know by what articulators the airflow is obstructed:

bilabial p, b, m, w: the obstruction for the stream of air made by the lips

The upper and lower lip are tightly closed for the pronunciation of p, b, m, it means for the bilabial consonants occurring in both English and Slovak. In English, one more bilabial consonant is recognised which is made by rounded lips, namely w. The lips are not tightly closed during its pronunciation, but they take a specific position, therefore w is defined as a bilabial consonant. In Slovak, w is only used as a letter in words of foreign origin. The phoneme /w/ does not exist in Slovak, as both the letter v and the letter w, are pronounced as /v/.

labiodental f, v: the flow of air is obstructed by the contact between the lower lip and the upper teeth, the contact of these articulators forms an obstruction for the airstream

dental θ, ð: the tongue touches the upper teeth

The consonants /θ δ/ are the spoken representation of the digraph th, e.g. in English words like thing /θɪη/ or this /δɪs/. The only distinctive feature making these two consonants different is their voicing. While /θ/ is voiceless, /δ/ is a voiced consonant. Crystal defines the way of such a type of pronunciation as the contact between “the tongue tip between the teeth or close to the upper teeth” (Crystal, 2011, p. 243). Dental consonants do not exist in Slovak.

alveolar d, t, n, l, s, z: contact of the blade of the tongue and the alveolar ridge

Besides the pronunciation of alveolar d, t, n, l, also palatal ď, ť, ň, ľ are used in Slovak. The diacritical symbol ˇ is called “mäkčeň” (i.e. a palatalisation mark). The most appropriate way to transliterate ď is as /dj/, ť as /tj/, ň as /nj/ and ľ as /lj/, in spite of the fact that each of the Slovak consonants ď, ť, ň, ľ is monophonemic. When the letters d, t, n, l are followed by i, í, e, é in Slovak, the consonants are pronounced as soft, e.g. deti /ďeťi/, díva sa /ďíva sa/, neha /ňeha/, hence their place of articulation changes – Slovak /ď ť ň ľ/ are pronounced as palato-alveolar.

The two characteristic features of American English should be mentioned. These are flapped medial /t/ using the transcription symbol t̬, e.g. in better – British /betə/, American /bɛt̬ə/ and – owing to rhoticity of this variety – the presence of postvocalic r, e.g. farmer – British /fa:mə/, American /fa:rmɚ/.

post-alveolar r: the tongue tip touches the place behind the alveolar ridge

The intermittent closure causes a different classification of the Slovak /r/. It is defined as tap, its long realisation /ŕ/ is trill (roll).

The impact of rhoticity is also noted in a set of American English consonants – the British post-alveolar approximant /r/ is replaced by a retroflex approximant /ɹ /.

palato-alveolar ʃ, ʒ, ʧ, dʒ: the blade or tip of the tongue touches the place between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate, the front part of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate

palatal j: contact of the front part of the tongue and the hard palate

velar k, g, ŋ: the back part of the tongue raises against the soft palate

English includes velar /k g η/. Slovak recognizes /k g x/ as velar consonants (/x/ is represented with the digraph ch in the written form). The phoneme /η/ is pronounced in English and in Slovak words in the same position – when k or g follow n in words, e.g. English think /θɪηk/ or Slovak banka /baηka/. Its status in English and Slovak differs – while /η/ is a phoneme having a distinctive validity in English, in Slovak, /η/ is an allophone of the phoneme /n/ 

glottal h: the glottis is slightly open, allowing audible friction, the vocal cords are loosely together and not vibrating

The only English glottal consonant /h/ is characterised as a voiceless glottal fricative consonant found “in stressed positions when followed by a vowel, e.g. how” and the voiced glottal fricative in “intervocalic positions, e.g. behind” (Pavlík, 2000, p. 262). In Slovak, the phonemes /h/ and velar /γ/ function as voiced alternatives for a voiceless velar /x/ (Kráľ, 1982). Although /γ/ does not have any grapheme representation in the written form, /x/ exists as the digraph letter ch and occurs quite frequently in Slovak. Slovak /h/ is a glottal voiced phoneme. Jones consideres /x/ being a “non-English sound” when he writes that “most English speakers are aware of, and often attempt to pronounce, some sounds of languages other than English…We find the voiceless velar fricative /x/ in the Gaelic languages of Scotland and Ireland in words such as loch and names such as Strachan” (Jones, 2003, p. xi). The consonant h, according to Crystal, “occurs only in a syllable initial position, before a vowel and is omitted in many regional accents, and widely considered the chief sign of “uneducated” British speech. Usage variation in initial unaccented syllable (e.g. an hotel vs a hotel)” also exists (Crystal, 2011, p. 244). In many dialects, h as a phoneme has disappeared. In Cockney “dropping one´s h´s” can still be heard (Trnka, 2014, p. 21). Hancock also focuses his attention on sound variations of the consonant h in different accents when he claims that in the Southern English accent, speakers “may cut the /h/ when speaking in relaxed and informal contexts”, thus for instance heating in here sounds like eating in ear (Hancock, 2015, p. 124). ”Most Latin-based languages have got rid of /h/ – you won’t find one in Spanish, French or Italian to name a few, and there has been an ongoing debate for centuries as to whether we need the sound at all in English. When you consider words like ‘hospital’ dropped their /h/ to /ˈɒspɪtəl/, then got it back again, and the fact it simply doesn’t exist in most regional accents, you may wonder whether /h/ is just a fashion accessory bandied around by elocutionists elusively seeking ‘correctness“ (Pronunciation Studio, Joseph Hudson, 28th September, 2016).

SUMMING UP:

English:

BILABIAL: p, b, m, w

LABIODENTAL: f, v

DENTAL: θ, ð

ALVEOLAR: d, t, n, l, s, z

POST-ALVEOLAR: r

PALATO-ALVEOLAR: ʃ, ʒ, ʧ, dʒ

PALATAL: j

VELAR: k, g, ŋ

GLOTTAL: h

Slovak:

BILABIAL: p, b, m

LABIODENTAL: f, v

ALVEOLAR: t, d, n, s, z, c, dz

POST-ALVEOLAR: ʃ, ʒ, ʧ, ʤ, r, l, ŕ, ĺ 

PALATO-ALVEOLAR: ď, ť, ň, ľ

PALATAL: j

VELAR: k, g, x

GLOTTAL: h