Keywords: British Standard English; Pakistani Standard English; consonant system; inventorial realizational incidental and distributional differences
The paper offers a systematic description of consonant system of Pakistani Standard English (PSE) and compares it with British Standard English (BSE) keeping in view the inventorial, realizational, incidental and distributional differences.
Most of the previous studies on the consonant system of PE focused on the distributional and realizational differences overlooking inventorial and incidental differences.
The following sections describe the
consonant system, phonological processes affecting consonants, the complex vowel system, and orthographic conventions.
In view of these distinct manifestations of both similarity and contrast, it is possible to remove the above uncertainty about the proper interpretation of the roles of contrast and similarity in the English consonant system. Since similarity and contrast can be shown to exist individually in the domain of vowels, it stands to reason that they also contribute to determining the structure of the consonant system.
All these arguments suggest the reality of diachronic forces which serve to create symmetry in the consonant system. On the logic spelled out above, this may be attributed to the operation of the similarity principle.
A major restructuring in the Old English consonant system: the delinearization of [h] and the de-consonantalization of [w] and [j].
The English
consonant system consists of 17 obstruents, three pairs of stops, four pairs of fricatives, and two affricates, all distinguished by voicing.
This letter is probably a s, forming with the preceding letter the word for "arrow," hs; a clear s is written on a slightly later arrowhead found in eastern Lebanon.(33) The el-Hadr arrowhead inscriptions may exhibit the older form hz, attested in the Ugaritic cuneiform alphabetic texts.(34) The evidence for the Canaanite "long" consonant system does not appear as convincing on the basis of linear texts written in these languages or dialects.
The old, richer consonant system is reflected in Greek names of two great Phoenician cities, Sidon and Tyre.(35) Both of them are written with s in Phoenician inscriptions, sdn - sr.
Alongside a detailed description of the vowel and
consonant systems there is also a taxonomy of sentence-phonetic phenomena.
This also includes an analysis of consonant mutation and stem-initial
consonant systems of several languages and Atlantic lexical material in comparative word lists.
The difference between the underlying
consonant systems can be used as a partial foundation for dialect geography.
