Consonant clusters
A consonant cluster is a group of consonant sounds in a word with no vowels separating them. Consonant clusters are viewed as glued together and so we may not separate them when we syllabize the word. So, however many consonants there are in a consonant cluster, they do not affect the number of syllables of a word. Consonant clusters can occur at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a word. Consonant clusters that begin a word are called initial consonant clusters. There can be a maximum of three initial consonant clusters. For example, all of these are one-syllable words:
spring, strap, squat, string, splash
The above words contain three letter, initial consonant clusters. We should note that consonant clusters are determined by the number of consonant sounds, not by the number of consonant letters. So, ‘squ’ in ‘squat’ contains three consonant sounds since it is composed of /skw/.
English words can have four or even five consonants in the middle of a word, which occur mainly in compound words where one component word ends and the other component word begins with a consonant cluster. In this case, we need to separate letters between clusters. For example,
hand-spring, watch-strap, ab-stract, in-struct
Words that have the letter ‘x’ are divided within ‘x’ since ‘x’ is a consonant cluster /ks/: for example,
extra /k.str/, explain /k.spl/
Consonant clusters that occur at the end of words are called final consonant clusters. There can be as many as four consonants in the final consonant cluster. Final consonant clusters are often created due to the addition of grammar particles like -ed or -es. In some combinations with grammar particles, the pronunciation can be challenging. These are examples of consonant clusters with challenging pronunciations:
/ʧt/ hitched, matched, watched
/ʤd/ caged, edged, forged, judged, waged
/ʃt/ cashed, fished, mashed, washed
/θs/ myths, baths, cloths, maths, oaths
/ðd/ wreathed, bathed, betrothed, clothed, seethed, swathed
/ðz/ bathes, breathes, clothes, loathes, seethes, soothes, paths, truths
Some of the above words relating to /θs/ and /ðz/ have two different pronunciations. For example,
oath /oʊθ/ oaths /oʊθs/, /oʊðz/
bath /bæθ/ baths /bæθs/, /bæðz/
truth /truθ/ truths /truθs/, /truðz/
path /pæθ/ paths /pæθs/, /pæðz/
The singular form of these words all end with /θ/. In their plural forms, they either end with the voiceless consonant cluster /θs/ or the voiced consonant cluster /ðz/. There are two reasons that these words have two different pronunciations. One is the phenomenon of the progressive assimilation of voice, which means that the voice of the consonant cluster is the same as the voice of the first consonant in the cluster. So, since ‘oath’ is pronounced /oʊθ/, ‘oaths’ is pronounced /oʊθs/. The reason that ‘oaths’ can be pronounced /oʊðz/ relates to the grammar in Old English. In Old English grammar, voicing (changing voiceless consonants into voiced consonants) was used for a grammar purpose: e.g., to change a noun to a verb or to change a singular noun to a plural noun. These are some remnants of the practice:
belief – believe, bath – bathe, knife – knives, leaf – leaves
So, some words that end with /θ/ could have the voiced sound /ð/ in their plural forms as a vestige of the old practice: e.g., oaths, baths, paths and truths. Since such words end with the voiced /ð/ sound, the phenomenon of the progressive assimilation of voice requires an attached ‘s’ also to be voiced, thus producing the sound /ðz/. These are example sentences with these words:
Truths can sound like lies.
There are many paths to success.
Pronouncing a long consonant cluster can be challenging, even for English natives. When there are three or more consonants in a row, the middle one can be dropped. The first and last consonant may not be dropped:
tests /tɛsts/ or /tɛs/
asked /æskt/ or /æst/
months /mʌnθs/ or /mʌns/
Consonant digraphs
Consonant digraphs are single consonant sounds represented by two consonants. In other words, they are made of two consonants that make only one consonant sound. For example, ‘thin’, ‘ship’, and ‘king’ have consonant digraphs: th, sh and ng. Common consonant digraphs are these:
ch (/tʃ/), gh (/f/), ph /f/, sh (/ʃ/), th (/θ/ or /ð/), wh (/w/), wr (/w/ or /r/), ck (/k/), ng (/ŋ/)
A consonant digraph should be treated like a single consonant and should not be divided. These are examples of syllabication with consonant digraphs:
teach-er, sheep, graph-ic, rath-er, with-out, what, laugh, fa-ther, brea-thing, friend-ship, laugh-a-ble