Pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩
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English pronunciation |
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In English, the
General description
In standard English, the phonetic realization of the two dental fricative phonemes shows less variation than many other English consonants. Both are pronounced either
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.
Phonology and distribution
In modern English, /θ/ and /ð/ bear a phonemic relationship to each other, as is demonstrated by the presence of a small number of minimal pairs: thigh:thy, ether:either, teeth:teethe. Thus they are distinct phonemes (units of sound, differences in which can affect meaning), as opposed to allophones (different pronunciations of a phoneme having no effect on meaning). They are distinguished from the neighbouring labiodental fricatives, sibilants and alveolar stops by such minimal pairs as thought:fought/sought/taught and then:Venn/Zen/den.
The vast majority of words in English with ⟨th⟩ have /θ/, and almost all newly created words do. However, the constant recurrence of the function words, particularly the, means that /ð/ is nevertheless more frequent in actual use.
The distribution pattern may be summed up in the following rule of thumb, which is valid in most cases: in an initial position, /θ/ is used except in certain function words; in a medial position, /ð/ is used except for certain foreign loan words; and in final position, /θ/ is used except in certain verbs. A more detailed explanation follows.
Initial position
- Almost all words beginning with a dental fricative have /θ/.
- A small number of common function words (the Middle English anomalies mentioned below) begin with /ð/. The words in this group are:
- 1 definite article: the
- 4 demonstratives: this, that, these, those
- 2 personal pronouns each with multiple forms: thou, thee, thy, thine, thyself; they, them, their, theirs, themselves, themself
- 7 adverbs and conjunctions: there, then, than, thus, though, thence, thither (though in the United States thence and thither may be pronounced with initial /θ/[1])
- Various compound adverbs based on the above words: therefore, thereupon, thereby, thereafter, thenceforth, etc.
- A few words have an initial ⟨th⟩ for /t/ (e.g. Thomas): see below.
Medial position
- Most native words with a medial ⟨th⟩ have /ð/.
- Between vowels (including r-colored vowels), followed by a weak vowel: heathen, farthing, fathom, Worthington; and the frequent combination -ther-: bother, brother, dither, either, farther, father, further, heather, lather, mother, northern, other, rather, smithereens, slither, southern, together, weather, whether, wither; Caruthers, Netherlands, Witherspoon.
- Followed by /r/: brethren.
- A few native words have a medial /θ/:
- The suffixes -y, -ly, -ing and -ed normally leave terminal /θ/ unchanged: earthy, healthy, pithy, stealthy, wealthy, bothy (from booth); fourthly, monthly; earthing; frothed; but worthy and swarthy have /ð/.
- Some plurals have /θs/, as discussed in more detail below: cloths, baths etc.
- Compound words in which the first element ends or the second element begins with ⟨th⟩ frequently have /θ/, as these elements would in isolation: bathroom, Southampton; anything, everything, nothing, something.
- The only other native words with medial /θ/ would seem to be brothel (usually) and Ethel.
- Most loan words with a medial ⟨th⟩ have /θ/.
- From Greek: Agatha, anthem, atheist, Athens, athlete, cathedral, Catherine, Cathy, enthusiasm, ether, ethics, ethnic, lethal, lithium, mathematics, method, methyl, mythical, panther, pathetic, sympathy
- From Latin: author, authority (though in Latin these had /t/; see below). Also names borrowed from or via Latin: Bertha, Gothic, Hathaway, Othello, Parthian
- From Celtic languages: Arthur (Welsh has /θ/ medially: /ærθɨr/); Abernathy, Abernethy, as an anglicization, though Gaelic has no /θ/.
- From Hebrew: Ethan, Jonathan, Bethlehem, Bethany, Leviathan, Bethel
- From German: Luther, as an anglicized spelling pronunciation (see below).
- Loanwords with medial /ð/:
- Greek words with the combination -thm-: algorithm, logarithm, rhythm. Exception : arithmetic /əˈrɪθmətɪk/. The word asthma may be pronounced /ˈæzðmə/ or /ˈæsθmə/, though here the ⟨th⟩ is usually silent.
- A few words have a medial ⟨th⟩ for /t/ or /th/ (e.g. lighthouse): see below.
Final position
- Nouns and adjectives
- Nouns and adjectives ending in a dental fricative usually have /θ/: bath, breath, cloth, froth, health, hearth, loath, mouth, sheath, sooth, tooth/teeth, width, wreath.
- Exceptions are usually marked in the spelling with a silent ⟨e⟩: tithe, lathe, lithe with /ð/.
- blithe can have either /ð/ or /θ/. booth has /ð/ in England but /θ/ in America.
- Verbs
- Verbs ending in a dental fricative usually have /ð/, and are frequently spelled with a silent ⟨e⟩: bathe, breathe, clothe, loathe, scathe, scythe, seethe, sheathe, soothe, teethe, tithe, wreathe, writhe. Spelled without ⟨e⟩: mouth (verb) nevertheless has /ð/.
- froth has /θ/ whether as a noun or as a verb.
- The verb endings -s, -ing, -ed do not change the pronunciation of a ⟨th⟩ in the final position in the stem: bathe has /ð/, therefore so do bathed, bathing, bathes; frothing has /θ/. Likewise clothing used as a noun, scathing as an adjective etc.
- The archaic verb inflection "-eth" has /θ/.
- Others
- with has either /θ/ or /ð/ (see below), as do its compounds: within, without, outwith, withdraw, withhold, withstand, wherewithal, etc.
Plurals
- Plural ⟨s⟩ after ⟨th⟩ may be realized as either /ðz/ or /θs/:
- Some plural nouns ending in ⟨ths⟩, with a preceding vowel, have /ðz/, although the singulars always have /θ/; however, a variant in /θs/ will be found for many of these: baths, mouths, oaths, paths, sheaths, truths, wreaths, youths exist in both varieties; clothes always has /ðz/ (if not pronounced /kloʊz/[2]).
- Others have only /θs/: azimuths, breaths, cloths, deaths, faiths, Goths, growths, mammoths, moths, myths, smiths, sloths, zeniths, etc. This includes all words in 'th' preceded by a consonant (earths, hearths, lengths, months, widths, etc.) and all numeric words, whether preceded by vowel or consonant (fourths, fifths, sixths, sevenths, eighths /eɪtθs/, twelfths, fifteenths, twentieths, hundredths /hʌndrədθs/, thousandths).
- Booth has /ð/ in the singular and hence /ðz/ in the plural for most speakers in England.[citation needed] In American English, it has /θ/ in the singular and /θs/ or /ðz/ in the plural. This pronunciation also prevails in Scotland.
Grammatical alternation
In pairs of related words, an alternation between /θ/ and /ð/ is possible, which may be thought of as a kind of consonant mutation. Typically /θ/ appears in the singular of a noun, /ð/ in the plural and in the related verb: 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. It goes back to the allophonic variation in Old English (see below), where it was possible for ⟨þ⟩ to be in final position and thus voiceless in the basic form of a word, but in medial position and voiced in a related form. The loss of inflections then brought the voiced medial consonant to the end of the word. Often a remnant of the old inflection can be seen in the spelling in the form of a silent ⟨e⟩, which may be thought of synchronically as a marker of the voicing.
Regional differences in distribution
The above discussion follows
- The final consonant in with is pronounced /θ/ (its original pronunciation) in northern Britain, but /ð/ in the south, though some speakers of Southern British English use /θ/ before a voiceless consonant and /ð/ before a voiced one. A 1993 postal poll of American English speakers showed that 84% use /θ/, while 16% have /ð/ (Shitara 1993). (The variant with /ð/ is presumably a sandhi development.)
- In Scottish English, /θ/ is found in many words which have /ð/ further south. The phenomenon of nouns terminating in /θ/ taking plurals in /ðz/ does not occur in the north. Thus the following have /θs/: baths, mouths (noun), truths. Scottish English does have the termination /ðz/ in verb forms, however, such as bathes, mouths (verb), loathes, and also in the noun clothes, which can be realized without /ð/. Scottish English also has /θ/ in with, booth, thence etc., and the Scottish pronunciation of thither, almost uniquely, has both /θ/ and /ð/ in the same word. Where there is an American-British difference, the North of Britain generally agrees with the United States on this phoneme pair.
- Some dialects of American English use /ð/ at the beginning of the word "thank".
History of the English phonemes
Germanic origins
- *đ (/ð/) was derived by Grimm's law from PIE *dʰ or by Verner's law (i.e. when immediately following an unstressed syllable) from PIE *t.
- *þ (/θ/) was derived by Grimm's law from PIE *t.
In
The whole complex of Germanic dentals, and the place of the fricatives within it, can be summed up in this table:
PIE | Proto-Germanic | West Germanic | Old English | German | Dutch | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
*t | *þ | *[þ] | [θ] | /d/ | /d/ | Original *t in initial position, or in final position after a stressed vowel |
*[đ] | [ð] | Original *t in medial position after a stressed vowel | ||||
*đ | *d | /d/ | /t/ | Original *t after an unstressed vowel | ||
*dʰ | Original *dʰ in all positions | |||||
*d | *t | *t | /t/ | /s/ or /ts/ | /t/ | Original *d in all positions |
Note that this table shows only the basic rules. The actual developments in all of the mentioned languages are more complicated (due to dialectal variation, peculiar developments in consonant clusters, etc.). For more on these phonemes from a comparative perspective, see Grammatischer Wechsel. For the developments in German and Dutch see High German consonant shift.
Old English
Thus English inherited a phoneme /θ/ in positions where other West Germanic languages have /d/ and most other Indo-European languages have /t/: English three, German drei, Latin tres.
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.
- [ð] (like [v] and [z]) was used between two voiced sounds (either vowels or voiced consonants).
- [θ] (like [f] and [s]) was spoken in initial and final position, and also medially if adjacent to another unvoiced consonant.
Although Old English had two graphemes to represent these sounds, ⟨þ⟩ (
Development up to Modern English
The most important development on the way to modern English was the investing of the existing distinction between [ð] and [θ] with phonemic value. Minimal pairs, and hence the phonological independence of the two phones, developed as a result of three main processes.
- In early Middle English times, a group of very common function words beginning with /θ/ (the, they, there, etc.) came to be pronounced with /ð/ instead of /θ/. Possibly this was a sandhi development; as these words are frequently found in unstressed positions, they can sometimes appear to run on from the preceding word, which may have resulted in the dental fricative being treated as though it were word-internal. This allowed a word-initial minimal pair like thigh:thy.
- English has borrowed many words from Greek, including a vast number of scientific terms. Where the original Greek had the letter ⟨θ⟩ (theta), English usually retained the Late Greek pronunciation regardless of phonetic environment, resulting in the presence of /θ/ in medial position (anthem, methyl, etc.). This allowed a medial minimal pair like ether:either.
- English has lost its original verb inflections. When the stem of a verb ends with a dental fricative, this was usually followed by a vowel in Old English, and was therefore voiced. It is still voiced in modern English, even though the verb inflection has disappeared leaving the /ð/ at the end of the word. Examples are to bathe, to mouth, to breathe. Sometimes a remnant of the original vowel remained in the spelling (see: Silent e), but this was inconsistent. This allowed a minimal pair in final position like loath:loathe.
Other changes that affected these phonemes included a shift /d/ → /ð/ when followed by unstressed suffix -er. Thus Old English fæder became modern English father; likewise mother, gather, hither, together, weather (from mōdor, gaderian, hider, tōgædere, weder). In a reverse process, Old English byrþen and morþor or myþra become burden and murder (compare the obsolete variants burthen and murther).
Dialectally, the alternation between /d/ and /ð/ sometimes extends to other words, as bladder, ladder, solder with /ð/ (possibly being restricted elsewhere by the former two clashing with blather and lather). On the other hand, some dialects retain original d, and extend it to other words, as brother, further, rather. The Welsh name Llewelyn appears in older English texts as Thlewelyn (Rolls of Parliament (Rotuli parliamentorum) I. 463/1, King Edward I or II), and Fluellen (Shakespeare, Henry V). Th also occurs dialectally for wh, as in thirl, thortleberry, thorl, for whirl, whortleberry, whorl. Conversely, Scots has whaing, whang, white, whittle, for thwaing, thwang, thwite, thwittle.
The old verb inflection -eth (Old English -eþ) was replaced by -s (he singeth → he sings), not a sound shift but a completely new inflection.
Dialectal realizations
In some dialects the "th"-sound phonemes /θ/ and /ð/ are pronounced differently from the dental fricatives [θ] and [ð]. Most common are: substitution with labiodental fricatives [f] and [v] (fronting), substitution with alveolar stops [t] and [d] (stopping), and substitution with alveolar fricatives [s] and [z] (alveolarization). Fronting and stopping are more common among speakers of English dialects, whereas alveolarization is more common among language learners whose first languages are French, German, or Mandarin. To speakers of varieties in which /θ/ and /ð/ are pronounced [θ] and [ð], fronting and stopping are generally considered to have less of a marked contrast with the standard pronunciation than alveolarization, which is often more stigmatized.
A fourth, less common substitution is [h] for /θ/ word-initially or intervocalically. This is called debuccalization, and somewhat prevalent in Scottish English.
th-fronting
In some areas, such as
Note that, at least in Cockney, a word beginning with /ð/ (as opposed to its voiceless counterpart /θ/) can never be labiodental. Instead, it is realized as any of [
th-stopping
Many speakers of
In Cockney, the th-stopping may occur when a word begins with /ð/ (but not its voiceless counterpart /θ/).[3][4] This is also associated with the accent of the English city of Sheffield (such as the nickname dee-dahs for residents) but such pronunciations are now confined to the very oldest residents of Sheffield.[5]
th-alveolarization
Th-alveolarization is a process that occurs in some African varieties of English where the dental fricatives /θ, ð/ merge with the alveolar fricatives /s/ and /z/. It is an example of assibilation.
In rarer or older varieties of
Th-alveolarization is often parodied as typical of French- and German-speaking learners of English, but it is widespread among many other foreign learners because the dental fricative "th" sounds are not very common among the world's languages. Due to the said ridicule, learners who are unable to realize these sounds sometimes opt for the less marked th-fronting or th-stopping instead of alveolarization.[citation needed]
/s, z/ | /θ, ð/ | IPA | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
ace | eighth | ˈeɪs | eighth more often merges with eights (see below) |
bass | bath | ˈbæs | bass, the fish; but distinct in dialects with broad A
|
Bess | Beth | ˈbɛs | |
breeze | breathe | ˈbɹiːz | |
close | clothe | ˈkloʊz | |
close | clothes | ˈkloʊz | |
eights | eighth | ˈeɪts | |
Erse | earth | ˈɜː(r)s | |
face | faith | ˈfeɪs | |
force | forth | ˈfoə(r)s | |
force | fourth | ˈfoə(r)s | |
frost | frothed | ˈfrɒst, ˈfrɔːst | |
gross | growth | ˈɡroʊs | |
kiss | kith | ˈkɪs | |
lays | lathe | ˈleɪz | |
laze | lathe | ˈleɪz | |
lies | lithe | ˈlaɪz | |
louse | Louth | ˈlaʊs | |
lyse | lithe | ˈlaɪz | |
mass | math | ˈmæs | |
mess | meth | ˈmɛs | |
miss | myth | ˈmɪs | |
months | month | ˈmʌns | |
moss | moth | ˈmɒs, ˈmɔːs | |
mouse | mouth | ˈmaʊs | |
pass | path | ˈpæs, ˈpɑːs | |
piss | pith | ˈpɪs | |
purse | Perth | ˈpɜː(r)s | |
race | wraith | ˈreɪs | |
rise | writhe | ˈraɪz | |
Ross | Roth | ˈrɒs, ˈrɔːs | |
ryes | writhe | ˈraɪz | |
sai | thigh | ˈsaɪ | |
sane | thane | ˈseɪn | |
sane | thegn | ˈseɪn | |
sank | thank | ˈsæŋk | |
saw | thaw | ˈsɔː | |
saw | Thor | ˈsɔː | In most Cot-caught merger .
|
seam | theme | ˈsiːm | |
seas | seethe | ˈsiːz | |
seem | theme | ˈsiːm | |
sees | seethe | ˈsiːz | |
seize | seethe | ˈsiːz | |
sick | thick | ˈsɪk | |
sigh | thigh | ˈsaɪ | |
sin | thin | ˈsɪn | |
sing | thing | ˈsɪŋ | |
sink | think | ˈsɪŋk | |
six | sixth | ˈsɪks | |
size | scythe | ˈsaɪz | |
soar | thaw | ˈsɔː | horse-hoarse merger .
|
soar | Thor | ˈsɔː(r) | With horse-hoarse merger .
|
soared | thawed | ˈsɔːd | horse-hoarse merger .
|
some | thumb | ˈsʌm | |
song | thong | ˈsɒŋ, ˈsɔːŋ | |
sore | thaw | ˈsɔː | horse-hoarse merger .
|
sore | Thor | ˈsɔː(r) | With horse-hoarse merger .
|
sored | thawed | ˈsɔːd | horse-hoarse merger .
|
sort | thought | ˈsɔːt | Non-rhotic accents.
|
sought | thought | ˈsɔːt | |
suds | thuds | ˈsʌdz | |
sum | thumb | ˈsʌm | |
sump | thump | ˈsʌmp | |
sunder | thunder | ˈsʌndə(r) | |
sunk | thunk | ˈsʌŋk | |
swart | thwart | ˈswɔː(r)t | |
sword | thawed | ˈsɔːd | horse-hoarse merger .
|
tense | tenth | ˈtɛns | |
tents | tenth | ˈtɛn(t)s | |
truce | truth | ˈtruːs | |
use (n) | youth | ˈjuːs | |
whiz | with | ˈwɪz | With wine-whine merger .
|
wizard | withered | ˈwɪzə(r)d | |
worse | worth | ˈwə(r)s | |
wrasse | wrath | ˈræs | |
wreath | Reece | ˈriːs | |
wreath | Rhys | ˈriːs | |
Z; zee | the | ˈziː | The before vowels and silent H; but distinct in dialects where Z is [zɛd] |
Z; zee | thee | ˈziː | but distinct in dialects where Z is [zɛd] |
Zs; zees | these | ˈziːz | |
zen | then | ˈzɛn |
th-debuccalization
In many varieties of Scottish English, /θ/ becomes [h] word initially and intervocalically.[7]
Th-debuccalization occurs mainly in Glasgow and across the Central Belt. A common example is [hɪŋk] for think. This feature is becoming more common in these places over time, but is still variable.[citation needed] In word final position, [θ] is used, as in standard English.
The existence of local [h] for /θ/ in Glasgow complicates the process of th-fronting there, a process which gives [f] for historical /θ/. Unlike in the other dialects with th-fronting, where [f] solely varies with [θ], in Glasgow, the introduction of th-fronting there creates a three-way variant system of [h], [f] and [θ].
Use of [θ] marks the local educated norms (the regional standard), while use of [h] and [f] instead mark the local non-standard norms. [h] is well known in Glasgow as a vernacular variant of /θ/ when it occurs at the start of a word and intervocalically, while [f] has only recently risen above the level of social consciousness.
Given that th-fronting is a relatively recent innovation in Glasgow, it was expected that linguists might find evidence for lexical diffusion for [f] and the results found from Glaswegian speakers confirm this.[citation needed] The existing and particular lexical distribution of th-debuccalization imposes special constraints on the progress of th-fronting in Glasgow.
In accents with th-debuccalization, the cluster /θr/ becomes [hr],[citation needed] giving these dialects a consonant cluster that does not occur in other dialects. The replacement of /θr/ with [hr] leads to pronunciations like:
- three – [hri]
- throw – [hro]
- through, threw – [hrʉ]
- thrash – [hraʃ]
- thresh – [hrɛʃ]
- thrown, throne – [hron]
- thread – [hrɛd]
- threat – [hrɛt]
Assimilation
As with many English consonants, a process of assimilation can result in the substitution of other speech sounds in certain phonetic environments. Native speakers do this subconsciously.
At word boundaries, alveolar stops next to dental fricatives assimilate very regularly, especially in rapid colloquial speech, involving both the
- in the: /ɪn ðə/ → [ɪn̪ n̪ə]
- join the army: /ˈdʒɔɪn ði ˈɑːmi/ → [ˈdʒɔɪn̪ n̪i ˈɑːmi]
- read these: /riːd ðiːz/ → [ɹiːd̪ d̪iːz]
- right there: /raɪt ˈðɛə/ → [ɹaɪt̪ ˈt̪ɛə] (more commonly: [ɹaɪʔ ˈðɛə], with a glottal stop)
- fail the test: /ˈfeɪl ðə ˈtɛst/ → [ˈfeɪl̪ l̪ə ˈtɛst]
The alveolar fricatives may become dental as well:[11]
- this thing: /ðɪs θɪŋ/ → [ðɪs̪ θɪŋ] or [ðɪs̪ s̪ɪŋ]
- takes them: /teɪks ðəm/ → [teɪks̪ ðm̩] or [teɪks̪ s̪m̩]
- was this: /wɒz ðɪs/ → [wɒz̪ ðɪs] or [wɒz̪ z̪ɪs]
/θ/ and /ð/ can also be lost through elision:[12][13] months [mʌns], clothes [kloʊz]. In rapid speech, sixth(s) may be pronounced like six.[14] Them may be contracted to 'em, and in this case the contraction is often indicated in writing. Some linguists see 'em as originally a separate word, a remnant of Old English hem, but as the apostrophe shows, it is perceived in modern English as a contraction of them.[15]
Acquisition problems
Children generally learn the less marked phonemes of the language before the more marked ones. In the case of English-speaking children, /θ/ and /ð/ are often among the last phonemes to be learnt, frequently not being mastered before the age of five. Prior to this age, many children substitute the sounds [f] and [v] respectively. For small children, fought and thought are therefore homophones. As British and American children begin school at age four and five respectively, 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.
Children with a lisp, however, have trouble distinguishing /θ/ and /ð/ from /s/ and /z/ respectively in speech, using a single /θ/ or /ð/ pronunciation for both, and may never master the correct sounds without speech therapy. The lisp is a common speech impediment in English.
Foreign learners may have parallel problems. Learners from very many cultural backgrounds have difficulties with English dental fricatives, usually caused by interference with either
History of the digraph
⟨th⟩ for /θ/ and /ð/
Though English speakers take it for granted, the digraph ⟨th⟩ is in fact not an obvious combination for a dental fricative. The origins of this have to do with developments in Greek.
By the time of New Testament Greek (
The history of the digraphs ⟨ph⟩ for /f/ and ⟨ch⟩ for Scots, Welsh or German /x/ is parallel.
⟨th⟩ for /t/
Since neither /tʰ/ nor /θ/ was a native sound in Latin, the tendency emerged at the latest in medieval Latin, to substitute /t/. Thus, in many modern languages, including French and German, the ⟨th⟩ digraph is used in Greek loan-words to represent an original /θ/, but is now pronounced /t/: examples are French théâtre, German Theater. In some cases, this etymological ⟨th⟩, which has no remaining significance for pronunciation, has been transferred to words in which there is no etymological justification for it. For example, German Tal ('valley', cognate with English dale) appears in many place-names with an archaic spelling Thal (contrast Neandertal and Neanderthal). The German spelling reform of 1901 largely reversed these, but they remain in some proper nouns. The name Rothschild is an example of this, being a compound of rot[h] ("red") and Schild ("shield").
Examples of this are also to be found in English, perhaps influenced immediately by French. In some Middle English manuscripts, ⟨th⟩ appears for ⟨t⟩ or ⟨d⟩: tho 'to' or 'do', thyll till, whythe white, thede deed. In Modern English we see it in Esther, Thomas, Thames, thyme, Witham (the town in Essex, not the river in Lincolnshire which is pronounced with /ð/) and the old spelling of Satan as Sathan. More recently, the name of the capital of Nepal was often written Katmandu down to the late 20th century, but is now usually spelt Kathmandu.
In a small number of cases, this spelling later influenced the pronunciation: amaranth, amianthus and author have spelling pronunciations with /θ/, and some English speakers use /θ/ in Neanderthal.
⟨th⟩ for /th/
A few English compound words, such as lightheaded or hothouse, have the letter combination ⟨th⟩ split between the parts, though this is not a digraph. Here, the ⟨t⟩ and ⟨h⟩ are pronounced separately (light-headed) as a cluster of two consonants. Other examples are anthill, goatherd, lighthouse, outhouse, pothead; also in words formed with the suffix -hood: knighthood, and the similarly formed Afrikaans loanword apartheid. In a few place names ending in t+ham, the t-h boundary has been lost and become a spelling pronunciation, for example Grantham.
See also
- Pronunciation
- English pronunciation
- Received Pronunciation
- Spelling pronunciation
- Non-native pronunciations of English
- English orthography
- Thorn
- Eth
References
Citations
- American Heritage Dictionary, 1969.
- ISBN 0-87779-047-7.
- ^ a b Wright (1981:137)
- ^ a b Wells (1982:329)
- ^ Stoddart, Upton and Widdowson in Urban Voices, Arnold, London, 1999, p. 79
- ^ Phonological Features of African American Vernacular English
- ISBN 9783954891917.
- ISBN 978-0-521-71740-3.
- ISBN 978-1-134-42046-9.
- ISBN 978-0-415-50649-6.
- ^ ISBN 9780470758243.
- ISBN 978-0-19-874706-2.
- ISBN 978-0-415-50649-6.
- ISBN 0-521-68086-7.
- ^ Online Etymology Dictionary. 'em. Retrieved 18 September 2006.
Sources
- Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2013) [First published 2003], Practical Phonetics and Phonology: A Resource Book for Students (3rd ed.), Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-50650-2
- Shitara, Yuko (1993). "A survey of American pronunciation preferences." Speech Hearing and Language 7: 201–32.
- ISBN 0-521-24224-X
- Wright, Peter (1981), Cockney Dialect and Slang, London, England: B.T. Batsford Ltd.