The consonants of RP

RP and trad-RP correspond as regards their consonant phoneme inventory, and essentially in realization. Cruttenden (1994: 196) provides statistics for consonant frequencies in Received Pronunciation, based on the work of Fry (on “Southern English”) and Perren, and these data introduce the twenty-four phonemes.

Some of these frequencies are, of course, structurally conditioned. Frequent occurrence of determiner the and pronouns in <th-, wh-> will account for comparatively high scores for [ð] and [w]. This aside, it is noteworthy that, as Cruttenden (1994: 196) observes, “the alveolar phonemes emerge as those which occur most frequently in English, this being a generalization which appears to be applicable to many languages”. There is also some dominance of the voiceless over the voiced in sounds thus paired.

The phonology of the RP/trad-RP consonantal system is widely known and has been extensively discussed. The account below concentrates on particular issues in this area rather than on an account of each phoneme in turn.