Gourt Home::Gourt :: Pronunciation of English th
In English, the digraph All other words, including most words with 'th' between vowels or other voiced sounds (including many words of Old English origin), have .
The digraph A few English compound words, such as lightheaded or hothouse, have the letter combination The difference between /θ/ and /ð/ is normally described as a voiceless-voiced contrast, as this is the aspect native speakers are most aware of. However the two phonemes are also distinguished by other phonetic markers. There is a difference of energy (see: Fortis and lenis), the fortis /θ/ being pronounced with more muscular tension than the lenis /ð/. Also, /θ/ is more strongly aspirated than /ð/, as can be demonstrated by holding a hand a few centimeters in front of the mouth and noticing the differing force of the puff of air created by the articulatory process.
As with many English consonants, a process of assimilation can result in the substitution of other speech sounds in certain phonetic environments. Most surprising to native speakers, who do this subconsciously, is the use of and [l as realisations of /ð/ in the following phrases (examples from Collins and Mees p,103):
/θ/ and /ð/ can also be lost through elision. In rapid speech, sixths may be pronounced like six, and them may be shortened (even in writing) to 'em.
Many speakers of Hiberno-English use a voiceless dental plosive (still usually distinct from alveolar /t, d/) instead of, or in free variation with, the fricatives /θ, ð/ (th-stopping). In African American Vernacular English, /ð/ is often pronounced *, especially in unstressed words (for example the, them, with).
Children with a lisp, however, have trouble distinguishing /θ/ and /ð/ from /s/ and /z/ respectively, using a single or pronunciation for both, and may never master the correct sounds without speech therapy. This is by far the most common speech impediment in English.
Foreign learners may have parallel problems. In English popular culture the substitution of /z/ for /ð/ is a common way of parodying a French accent, but in fact learners from very many cultural backgrounds have difficulties with English dental fricatives, usually caused by interference with either sibilants or stops. Words with a dental fricative adjacent to an alveolar sibilant, such as clothes, truths, fifths, sixths, anesthetic, etc., are commonly very difficult for foreign learners to pronounce.
Proto-Indo-European had an aspirated which came into Greek as , spelled with the letter theta. In the Greek of Homer and Plato this was still pronounced , and therefore when Greek words were borrowed into Latin theta was transcribed with By the time of New Testament Greek (koiné), however, the aspirated stop had shifted to a fricative: →/θ/. Thus theta came to have the sound which it still has in Modern Greek, and which it represents in the IPA. From a Latin perspective, the established digraph Since neither nor /θ/ was a native sound in Latin, the tendency must have emerged early, and at the latest by medieval Latin, to substitute /t/. Thus in many modern languages, including French and German, the The history of the digraphs In other languages, the same digraph may have an entirely different value with a separate history altogether. In some Celtic languages an
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represents two phonemes, the voiced dental fricative /ð/ (as in this) and the voiceless dental fricative /θ/ (thing).
Distribution in Old English
In Germanic, /ð/ and /θ/ were separate phonemes; in Old English the original /ð/ became /d/, but a new * appeared as an allophone of /θ/. In Old English, the phoneme /θ/, like all fricative phonemes in the language, had two allophones, one voiced and one voiceless, which were distributed regularly according to phonetic environment.
Although Old English had two graphemes to represent these sounds, Grammatical alternation
Since Old English was an inflected language, it was possible for a <þ> to be in final position in the basic form of a word, but in medial position in a related form. Thus an alternation between and apophony. Typically *" target="_blank" >appears in the singular of a noun, [ð in the plural and in the related verb. In many cases, this alternation survives into modern English: cloth /θ/, clothes /ð/, to clothe /ð/. This is directly comparable to the /s/-/z/ or /f/-/v/ alternation in house, houses or wolf, wolves.
Development up to Modern English
A number of developments have occurred since Old English, with the result that the distinction has once again become phonemic:
As a result of these three developments, there are a very small number of minimal pairs in Modern English which demonstrate that /ð/ and /θ/ are distinct phonemes.
in loathe was originally not final, as the Distribution in Modern English
The vast majority of words in English with have the voiceless sound, and almost all newly created words follow this. Exceptions:
have /ð/:
is nowadays usually silent.
is pronounced in some names, such as Thames and Thomas, and usually Esther. In some words of German origin it is pronounced even in English, though for some may also be used: Beethoven, Neanderthal, Gunther.
split between the parts, though this is not strictly a digraph. Here, the Regional differences in distribution
The above discussion follows Daniel Jones' English Pronouncing Dictionary, the authority on standard British English, and Webster's New World College Dictionary, an authority on American English. Usage appears much the same between the two. Regional variation within standard English includes the following:
Phonetic realisation
In standard English, both in Britain and America, the phonetic realisation of these phonemes shows less variation than for many other English consonants. Both are pronounced either interdentally, with the blade of the tongue resting against the lower part of the back of the upper teeth and the tip protruding slightly (though less prominently than for the corresponding sound in Spanish) or alternatively with the tip of the tongue against the back of the upper teeth. These two positions may be free variants, but for some speakers they are complementary allophones, the position behind the teeth being used when the dental fricative stands in proximity to an alveolar fricative, as in clothes (/ðz/) or myths (/θs/).
Realisation in non-standard Englishes
In some areas such as London, many people realize the phonemes /θ/ and /ð/ as and [v respectively (th-fronting). Although stigmatized as typical of a Cockney accent, this pronunciation is fairly widespread, and in at least one case has been transferred into standard English as a neologism: a bovver boy is a thug, a "boy" who likes "bother" (aggro).
Acquisition problems
Children generally learn the less marked phonemes of their native language before the more marked ones. In the case of English-speaking children, /θ/ and /ð/ are often among the last phonemes to be learned, frequently not being mastered before the age of five. Prior to this age, many children substitute the sounds and [v respectively. For small children, fought and thought are therefore homophones. As British and American children begin school at five, this means that many are learning to read and write before they have sorted out these sounds, and the infantile pronunciation is frequently reflected in their spelling errors: ve fing for the thing.
A note on the spelling
Though English speakers take it for granted, the digraph is in fact not an obvious combination for a dental fricative. The origins of this have to do with developments in Greek.
. Since sounds like /t/ with a following puff of air, was the logical spelling in the Latin alphabet.
now represented the voiceless fricative /θ/, and was used thus for English by French-speaking scribes after the Norman Conquest, since they were unfamiliar with the Germanic graphemes eth and thorn. Likewise, the spelling was used for /θ/ in Old High German prior to the completion of the High German consonant shift, again by analogy with the way Latin represented the Greek sound.
digraph is used in Greek loan-words to represent an original /θ/, but is now pronounced /t/. This has influenced the English spelling–pronunciation conventions in Thomas and Thames.
is pronounced /h/. While it is possible that this convention has been influenced by the presence in Latin of digraphs of the form consonant + References
See also
"Pronunciation of English th".