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SH phoneme /ʃ/
/ʃ/ is an English consonant phoneme that’s one of the standard English phonemes.[1]
Naming[edit | edit source]
Like other consonant phonemes, naming is unclear. It could be called the SH phoneme, after its most common spelling. Alternatively, it could be called esh after the letter ʃ, or shuh after its sound when initial. It appears twice in shush!
Phonotactics[edit | edit source]
/ʃ/ forms part of consonant clusters. There is one main initial consonant cluster, initial consonant cluster /ʃr/, e.g. shrew. Initial consonant cluster /ʃw/, e.g. schwa, also exists, but it’s extremely rare. Initial consonant cluster /ʃl/ and Initial consonant cluster /ʃm/ are similarly rare, but occur in some loanwords.
There is also a final consonant cluster, final consonant cluster /ʃt/, as in washed.
Pronunciation[edit | edit source]
The standard pronunciation of this is as a voiceless postalveolar fricative [ʃ].
Spelling[edit | edit source]
Spelling may be:
- ⟨sh⟩, e.g. shrimp, shack, shut, dash, fish, etc.
- ⟨s⟩, e.g. sugar, sure. These are sightwords. Plus ending -sion, e.g. mansion, tension, pension (which are not sightwords).
- ⟨t⟩, in words ending -tion, tious, tiate, -tial. e.g. nation.
- ⟨c⟩, e.g. glacier, ocean, social, special.
- ⟨sch⟩, e.g. schedule, schism.
- ⟨ss⟩, e.g. passion, mission, pressure, reassure, ending -ssion or sure.
