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Question

Difficulty: Very hardConsonant Sounds

In Oral English, spelling patterns often disguise the actual phonetic realization of consonants. Which of the following words contains the same consonant sound as the one represented by the underlined letter in a<u>z</u>ure?

  1. casualAnswer
  2. B
    breeze
  3. C
    chasm
  4. D
    mission

Answer

casual
The underlined letter 'z' in 'azure' is articulated as the voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/. Among the given options, 'casual' also articulates its internal consonant 's' as /ʒ/ (/ˈkæʒuəl/), providing an exact phonetic match.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Determine the exact phonetic consonant sound of the underlined letter in the target word.
The letter 'z' in 'azure' (/ˈæʒə/) represents the voiced postalveolar fricative phoneme /ʒ/.
Correct identification of the target phoneme /ʒ/ is required before examining the options.
2
Transcribe and analyze the corresponding consonant sounds in the options.
'casual' produces /ʒ/ (/ˈkæʒuəl/); 'breeze' produces /z/ (/briːz/); 'chasm' produces /z/ (/ˈkæzəm/); 'mission' produces /ʃ/ (/ˈmɪʃn/).
Analyzing Received Pronunciation (RP) transcriptions isolates orthographic spelling from actual sound.
3
Select the option sharing the identical consonant phoneme.
'casual' shares the /ʒ/ sound with 'azure'.
Both words contain the /ʒ/ sound despite using different graphemes ('z' vs 's').

Key Concept

Voiced Postalveolar Fricative (/ʒ/) Identification
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Topics

Consonant Sounds

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