Fricatives

Introduction to fricatives

At the systematic level, English has nine fricatives (Table 8.1). This makes them the largest class of consonants in English by manner of articulation. One determining factor in the auditory quality of fricatives is the shape of the tongue; the shape of the surface where friction is generated (such as the teeth or the roof of the mouth) is also important. Although they are not explicitly represented on the IPA chart, these factors explain why it contains so many fricatives.