Topic-078: Fortis and Lenis Consonants These are the terms used in the phonetic classification of consonantal sounds on the basis of their manners of articulation. Fortis refers to a sound made with a relatively strong degree of muscular effort and breath force compared with the other sound (known as lenis). The distinction between tense and lax is used for vowels on the similar lines. The labels strong and weak are sometimes used for the contrast involved, but these are more prone to ambiguity. In English, these are the voiceless consonants (pt, f, s, etc) which tend to be produced with fortis articulation (their voiced counterparts being relatively weak i.e., lenis), and often, when the voicing distinction is reduced, it is only the degree of articulatory strength which maintains a contrast between sounds. The term ‘fortis’ is sometimes used loosely to refer to strong vowel articulation also, but this is not a standard practice.
