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When discussing the manner of articulation of consonants, it's helpful to think in terms of how much oral obstruction is involved: complete, partial, or very slight. Table 4.1 summarizes the possibilities for English. In the case of plosives (also called oral stops), the obstruction is complete: when you say pay, you produce the plosive /p/ by first closing your lips completely to block the oral airflow and then opening your lips to create a very short explosion of air. Notice that you hear nothing at all during the closure; it's only when you release the stop that any sound is produced. The blockage at the lips is the same for the nasal consonant /m/; however, during the /m/, you allow air to pass through the nasal cavity, and sound occurs throughout the oral closure. While it is possible to sustain the /m/ sound for quite a long time—until you run out of air—the sound of /p/ can't be sustained since it occurs instantaneously on the release. Other plosives include /b/ as in boy and /t/ as in tot, and other nasals are /n/ as in tot and the /ŋ/ sound at the end of baug .

Partial obstruction of the vocal tract occurs for fricatives , such as /f/, which you produce by bringing your lower lip and upper teeth in contact while allowing some air to pass through the small opening between them. The result is a noisy sound that can also be sustained for some time. Other fricatives in English include /s/ as in sank and the /ʃ/ at the beginning of show.

A third manner is affricate. The ch combination in chin represents an affricate consonant in which a complete air blockage is followed by a partial one. This means that an affricate is actually a plosive followed by a fricative, and ch is represented by the IPA symbol /tʃ/, consisting of /t/ as in tot and /ʃ/ as in show. Even though this consonant is transcribed with two symbols, it functions as a single sound and you should regard it as one. As it turns out, there is only one other affricate in English: /dʒ/ as in jet.

If you need a refresher on the anatomical terms used here, you can refer back to Chapter 2.

Finally, for approximants, the airflow is hardly impeded at all. When you articulate the /w/ of way, you round your lips and raise the back of your tongue. Because of the very minor reduction in airflow, this gesture does not create noise as in the fricative /f/ in fin. The /w/ sound and /j/, which is commonly spelled with a y is in yes, are referred to as glide approximants because the articulators make a gliding movement. The other two English approximants, /l/ as in less and /ɹ/ as in rest, are referred to as liquids, an old term apparently chosen to capture the “liquid feel” of the sounds. Notice that liquids can be sustained for as long as the speaker wishes, whereas glides, because of their articulatory movement, cannot. The /l/ approximant is called lateral, because the tongue apex is raised to make contact with the alveolar ridge while air flows along the sides of the tongue. English /ɹ/ can be produced in more than one way. Some speakers bunch up the tongue (bunched‐tongue r) toward the alveolar ridge; others curl the apex slightly backward, again in the alveolar region (RETROFLEX r).

Table 4.1 Manners of articulation for English Consonants

Manner	Description	Example
Plosives (oral stops)	Complete oral obstruction	/p/ in pay
Fricatives	Partial obstruction; air turbulence creates noise	/f/ in fin
Affricates	Complete obstruction followed by partial obstruction	/tʃ/ in chin
Nasals	Complete oral obstruction; airstream travels through nasal cavity	/m/ in may
Approximants	Very slight obstruction; no turbulence and no noise	/w/ in way