Phonology Class

Consonant Sound

The 24 usual consonants occur in the following words, at the beginning unless otherwise specified: pale, tale, kale, bale, dale, gale, chain, Jane, fail, thin, sale, shale, hale, vale, this, zoo; (in the middle of) measure, mail, nail; (at the end of) sing, lay, rail, wail, Yale. Not one of these consonants is spelled in a completely consistent way in English, and some of them are spelled very oddly and inconsistently indeed. Note that our alphabet has no single letters for spelling the consonants in chain, thin, shale, this, measure, and sing. Those letters that are commonly used for spelling consonants may be called consonant letters, but calling them consonants is loose and misleading.