Consonant Clusters

Consonant Clusters:

English permits more than one consonant to release a syllable and more than one consonant to arrest a syllable. Such a sequence of two or more consonants at the beginning or end of a syllable is called Consonant Clusters or Consonant Sequences.

Note: English allows up to three consonants to begin a syllable and up to four consonants to end a syllable.Releasing consonant clusters in English (up to 3)

Two consonants 

Play - /pl-/

Bright - /br-/

Train - /tr-/

Glass - /gl-/

Three - /θr-/

Three consonants 

Spleen, splendid – /spl-/

Scream, screen – /skr-/

Spring - /spr-/

Arresting consonant clusters – some examples (up to 4)

Two consonants 

Clasp – /-sp/

Lamp – /-mp/

Judged – /-dzd/

Robbed – /-bd/

Orange – /-ndz/

Three consonants 

Midst – /-dst/

Amongst – /-nst/

Helped – /-lpt/

Drenched – /-ntst/

Adopts – /-pts/

Four consonants 

Texts – /-ksts/

Sixths – /-ksθs/

Tempts – /-mpts/

Twelfths - /-ifθs/

CONSONANT CLUSTERS IN OTHER LANGUAGES:

Some languages like Russian and German have many consonant clusters & consequently speakers of these languages have no difficulty in pronouncing English consonant cluster. On the other hand, many language do not have such clusters, or if they do, they have very few & short ones. Speakers of such languages find it difficult to pronounce some of the English consonant clusters.

Eg :

Hindi / Urdu speakers have difficulty in pronouncing initial consonant clusters

beginning with /s/. They sometimes insert a vowel /l/ before /s/ & pronounce

schoola

ssleep

Following is a list of words with common consonant clusters.

 Bl: blank, black, blue, blast, bloom, blink, blast

 Fr: fried, French, frank, friend, freak, frozen, frill, fraction, fragment

 St: stare, store, stir, stick, stuck, stroke, state, statement, still, stiff, storm, stammer

 Cl: cluster, clip, clothes, close, clear, clever, class

 Br: Bread, Break, Breakfast, Broom, Brisk, Brain, Bracket, Brush, Brim

 Fl: Flag, Flash, Flim, Flask, Floss, Flamingo, Fleet, Flatter, Fluff

 Gl: Glass, Gleam, Glitter, Glimpse

 Pl: Plush, Plum, Platipus, Plain, Platter, Plaque

 Sl: Slate, Slum, Slim.

 Cr: Cream, Create.

 Dr: Drone, Drum, Drumstick, Dress, Dream, Draft, Dragon