Aspirated Consonants: Quokkas, Parrots, & Kangaroos

In today’s lesson we’re going to learn about the aspiration of voiceless stop consonants.

By now you’ve learnt that stop consonants can be separated into two groups, the unvoiced stop consonants /p/, /t/, and /k/, and the voiced stop consonants /b/, /d/, and /g/.

However, there’s another interesting difference between these two groups of stop consonants.

The unvoiced stop consonants /p/, /t/, and /k/ can be followed by an obvious puff of air (i.e. aspiration), which is marked with this little /^h/ symbol in the IPA next to the aspirated consonant symbol.

For example:

• /p^h/
• /k^h/
• /t^h/

These are the only sounds in English that can be aspirated.

Note: normally this symbol isn’t included in the standard IPA transcription of words in dictionaries, but we’ll be using it in this lesson to make things easier to follow.

Listen and repeat the following words after me.

Place your hand in front of your face and see for which words you feel an obvious puff of air hitting your hand.

• Par – /p^hɐː/
• Bar – /bɐː/
• To – /t^hʉː/
• Do – /dʉː/
• Kay – /k^hæɪ/
• Gay – /gæɪ/

You should’ve noticed a strong puff of air hitting your hand when you said the words ‘Par’, ‘To’ and ‘Kay’.

There may still be a slight faint puff of air for the words ‘Bar’, ‘Do’, and ‘Gay’, but it’s much weaker.

What are the rules?

As we just covered, sometimes these voiceless stop consonants are aspirated, but sometimes they’re not.

This depends on where they appear within a word and/or if they’re within a consonant cluster.

The voiceless stop consonants /p/, /t/, and /k/ are aspirated when:

• They are the only consonant sound at the start of a stressed syllable. 

For example:

• • Par – /p^hɐː/
  • Oppose – /əˈp^həʉz/
  • To – /t^hʉː/
  • Attention – /əˈt^henʃən/
  • Cup – /k^hɐp/
  • Occasion – /əˈk^hæɪʒən/

The voiceless stop consonants /p/, /t/, /k/ are not aspirated when:

• They appear in consonant clusters at the start of stressed syllables.

For example:

• • Spin – /spɪn/
  • Prude – /pɹʉːd/
  • Stand – /stænd/
  • Stone – /stəʉn/
  • Clam – /klæm/
  • Scar – /skɐː/

• They’re not aspirated when appearing at the ends of syllables.

• • Gap – /gæp/
  • Back – /bæk/
  • Pet – /p^het/

• They’re not aspirated when they are at the front of unstressed/weak syllables.

• • Tomorrow, pattern – /təˈmɔrəʉ/ – /ˈpætən/
  • Petunia, Happen – /pəˈʧʉːnjɐ / – /ˈhæpən/
  • Command, Lucky – /kəˈmɐːnd/ – /ˈlɐki/

How is the sound made? 

As we’ve spoken about earlier, stop consonants are made by completely stopping the air flow in the mouth as the consonant is said (i.e. articulated).

For the aspirated stop consonants, written as /p^h/, /t^h/, and /k^h/ in the IPA, whilst the airflow is blocked in the mouth, whether it’s by the lips as with /p/, the tip of the tongue in /t^h/ or the back of the tongue in /k^h/, air pressure is built up, and when the lips or tongue open again, it rushes out as an audible puff of air.

Another way of thinking about it is as if you say an H /h/ sound at the same moment you release the voiceless stop consonants /p/, /t/, and /k/.

For the linguistic nerds: in linguistics the symbol that is used to show aspiration is ^h after the voiceless stop consonant, i.e. [p^h], [t^h], and [k^h]. However, be aware that in general IPA transcriptions of words, these symbols aren’t included.

Drilling exercises!

The topics below include drilling exercises for each of the pronunciation points you just learnt.

If you want to “drill down” and practice any or all of these pronunciation points, you can do so with these video exercises in order to solidify your pronunciation of these sounds.

If you can already pronounce these sounds with confidence, skip ahead to the next lesson.

But if you still have a little trouble either remembering the rules or making the sounds themselves, complete these exercises on a regular basis until you’ve nailed the pronunciation.

Tip: shorter and more frequent drilling sessions (e.g. 5 minutes per day) are more effective than longer infrequent sessions (e.g. 1 hour per week).