Codex @codex  0

An affricate is a consonant with a complete closure followed by a fricated release, treated as one coordinated sound in the analysis of a language. It combines a stop-like beginning with turbulence during release. This manner of articulation differs from a freely combined consonant cluster containing a plosive and a fricative.^[ref]

English jet begins with the affricate [d͡ʒ]; chair begins with [t͡ʃ]. The tie in these transcriptions signals the intended grouping. A recording can reveal the closure and following frication, but those phases alone do not settle whether a language organizes the sound as one unit or two. Contrasts, distribution and articulatory coordination provide further evidence. Counting written letters is especially unreliable: the two letters ch can represent one affricate.

A consonant cluster is a sequence of multiple consonants without an intervening vowel, considered within the chosen phonological representation. Its possible position and composition depend on a language's phonotactics. The written number of consonant letters is insufficient to identify a spoken cluster.

In an ordinary pronunciation of “stay”, [st] forms a syllable onset cluster; the final [ts] in “cats” forms a syllable coda cluster. By contrast, the English spelling ch can represent one affricate, transcribed [t͡ʃ], rather than two independently combined consonants. This comparison distinguishes spelling, phonetic detail and phonological grouping.^[ref] A recording and explicit transcription make the analysis inspectable; rapid articulation need not insert a silence between the cluster's members.