Palatoalveolar fricatives

The sequence [t + j] sometimes gives rise to palatoalveolar fricatives, as in words like ‘Tuesday’ and ‘question’, which can be pronounced with  or with the sequence [tj]. For some speakers, the first syllable of ‘Tuesday’ may be homophonous with ‘chews’; but for others, there is a distinction between the two kinds of word. ‘Chews’ has lip-rounding throughout and an overall dark resonance; on the other hand ‘Tues-’ has increasing lip-rounding throughout the consonantal portion until the [u] vowel is reached, when lip-rounding is at a maximum. The friction is also not in the same place as for [ʃ]: it is further forward and is made with the blade of the tongue. It is alveolopalatal and transcribed as  .

Similar observations could be made for ‘question’. Phonemicising this word as /kwεstʃən/ predicts that the consonant cluster /stʃ/ in the middle of the word should sound the same as in the sequence ‘nice church’. However, this does not seem quite accurate for all speakers, because the lip-rounding and tongue body posture in the two are different. In ‘question’, the friction is front and clear, and close to palatoalveolar,  .