ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the few plosive phonemes of English and the two affricate phonemes. Place of articulation differences, then, divide the six plosives into three pairs: bilabial, alveolar, and velar. Length of the preceding sound is a good distinguishing cue for syllable-final plosives. For example, a vowel before a fortis plosive is noticeable shorter than the same vowel before a voiced plosive: say the words “seat” and “seed” aloud a few times and listen for the difference. Distinctions between plosives at different places of articulation are carried by the formants of the preceding and following sounds. The sound can also occur word-medially, both as a word-medial syllable-final and as a word-medial syllable-initial. The most salient feature is the closure phase of the initial stop, shown as an unmarked band roughly at the left of the spectrogram. Also noticeable is the period of aspiration, marked on the spectrogram as pale markings immediately after the unmarked band.
