PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
Segmental Aspects

Consonants are phonologically defined as short owing to their quantity, but the human vocal apparatus can pronounce some types of consonants as long. Such “possibly long” consonants are called continuants. From the physiological point of view, the English fricatives, nasals, the lateral /l/ and the approximant /r/ can be pronounced as long. All these kinds of consonants are pronounced with the narrowing or the partial closure created between the articulators. In case of the nasals, they could be pronounced as long, because despite of the complete closure between the articulators, the air used for phonation is passing out through the nasal cavity, and this enables people to pronounce the nasal consonants as long.

In Slovak, two long consonants exist, namely /ŕ ĺ/. They occur in many Slovak words always functioning in consonant clusters as peaks of sonority represented by syllabic consonants.

The common term used for /l/ and /r/ is liquids.

English:

CONTINUANTS: f, v, θ, δ, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, h, m, n, η, l

Slovak:

CONTINUANTS: f, v, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, x, h, m, n, l, r