MAJOR CONSONANT SOUNDS As illustrated in the chart to follow, the English consonant inventory consists of twenty-five major sounds, or phonemes, each of which is represented by _a symbol. As a matter of fact, when the language is spoken, some of these sounds, such as the voiceless stops and the lateral liquid, may be manifested in various phonetic forms, depending upon their environments. Since the differences in phonetic properties of these sounds are automatic, or predictable, and do not function to distinguish the meaning of words in which the sounds occur, such variations of sounds are said to be allophones of the same phonemes. In describing consonants, linguists normally refer to (1) the state of the vocal cords - whether it is a voiced or voiceless sound, (2) the point of articulation and the articulator, and (3) the manner of articulation that characterizes the types of consonant. To distinguish