Distribution of English Phonemes

The distribution of English phonemes varies. Many phonemes can occur word-initially and word-finally, but others only occur word-initially or word-finally. Let us look at the distribution of various phonemes in English.

The velar nasal of sing only occurs word-finally. Unlike the bilabial nasal of me and the alveolar nasal of now, the velar nasal never occurs word-initially. It is the case that this phoneme never occurs word-initially in European languages.

The glottal fricative of house never occurs word-finally. English once had a velar fricative in words such as night, but this is no longer the case. In German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, glottal fricatives are also restricted to word-initial position.

The voiced interdental fricative of the can occur word-initially and word-finally, but it is more common in word-initial position. An example of the voiced interdental fricative in word-final position is bathe.

The lax vowels of end and it occur word-initially and word-medially, but not word-finally. However, this is not true for all dialects of English because in certain dialects, the high front unrounded lax vowel occurs in words such as happy,

The lax vowel of good never occurs word-initially or word-finally. It occurs after a word-initial consonant such as look and should. It has a much more restricted distribution than the tense vowel of boot.

The examples illustrate that English phonemes occur in different environments. The phonemes with restricted environments are marked. Thus the lax vowel of look is a marked vowel, but the vowel of boot is unmarked. The distribution of phonemes varies not only in English but in fact in all languages.