The consonant system

Jamaican Creole

The consonants

There are 21 phonemic consonants in JamC. These include the semi-vowels, /w/ [w] and /j/ [j], which are the phonetic vowels [i] and [u] functioning as consonants due to distributional constraints.

 

The palatal stops /kj/ [c], /gj/ [Ɉ] and /ny/ [ɲ] proposed by Cassidy and Le Page (1980) are not included in our inventory because we consider these phonetic palatals to be sequences of stops and the semi-vowels (cf. Devonish and Seiler 1991).

 

One feature little remarked on in the discussion of JamC consonant phonology over the years is the phonetics of the stop phonemes, /b/, /d/ and /g/. When these occur in the onset of a prominent syllable, they are phonetically realized as ingressive stops,  and [µ]. In other environments, notably in the coda or in the onset of a non-prominent syllable, the egressive [b], [d] and [g] allophones are employed. The distribution of these stops parallels that of the aspirated and unaspirated allophones of the voiceless stops, /p/, /t/ and /k/, with the aspirated allophones, [p^h], [t^h] and [k^h] occurring in the onset of prominent syllables, and the unaspirated ones, [p], [t] and [k], elsewhere.

 

Wells (1973: 12) suggests that /h/ occurs contrastively in the Western varieties of JamC, notably those of Manchester, St. Elizabeth and Westmoreland. This is supported by the intuitions of JamC speakers from the entire range of western parishes. For such speakers, /h/ would serve to distinguish between the following pairs.

(24) a. /an/ ‘and’ /han/ ‘hand’

        b. /iar/ ‘air’ /hiar/ ‘hair’

 

Such contrasts do not exist in the Eastern varieties of JamC, inclusive of that of Kingston. It is not, however, that the phone [h] does not exist in these varieties. Rather, it is employed for a different phonological function. Thus, the items above would, in the eastern varieties, be realized variably as [an] ~ [han] ‘and, hand’ and [iεɹ] ~ [hiεɹ] ‘air, hair’. In items without a lexically specified onset consonant, [h] may variably appear as a marker of emphasis, as an ‘[h]emphatic’ /h/. The phone [h], in the eastern varieties is simply marks off emphatic onsetless word initial syllables from their non-emphatic counterparts.

 

The consonant phoneme /ŋ/ has an unusual distribution in being the only one which is restricted to occurring in the coda.

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الاكثر قراءة في Phonology

Consonants Stops

Assimilations

Aspiration

English Consonants Stops

Minimal pairs and sets

The Northern Cities Shift

Feature geometry

Bukusu: nasal+consonant combinations

Phones and allophones

The Sonority Sequencing Generalization

Finding the underlying form

Allophony in other languages

Standard lexical sets

Major class features

Place of articulation

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

ملتقى الكوثر الثالث يشهد عرض مشهد حواري بعنوان شريك العمر أم شريك الفكر؟

إقامة مسابقة (مرفأ النور) العلمية للمشاركات في فعاليات ملتقى الكوثر بنسخته الثالثة

ضمن ملتقى الكوثر الثالث.. ورشة تسلط الضوء على بناء الوعي القرآني لدى النساء

شعبة فاطمة بنت أسد (عليها السلام): ملتقى الكوثر منصةً لتحقيق وعي أسري مستند للقرآن الكريم

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

نظام غذائي شائع قد يؤدي إلى ارتفاع الكوليسترول الضار

تحذيرات هامة من عواقب تناول "أيبوبروفين" مع أدوية شائعة

علامات مبكرة للإيبولا يمكن الخلط بينها وبين الإنفلونزا

خبراء: الفيروسات مثل هانتا وإيبولا أصبحت أكثر شيوعا وفتكاً

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

الليلة.. هلال القمر يلتقي كوكبي الزهرة والمشتري

إيلون ماسك يخسر دعواه القضائية أمام أوبن إيه.آي

مهمة فضائية "أوروبية صينية" لكشف أسرار الرياح الشمسية

انتهاء رحلة "السفينة الموبوءة".. وهذا مصير من بقي على متنها

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Phonological constraints

Phonotactic constraints

Words and Lexemes Summary

Phonological words

Phrasal affixes

Simple clitics Bound words

Types of clitics

What is a “word?”

Metathesis

Modifications of phonological features Mutation

Spelling and Pronunciation SUMMARY

American English vs. British English