http://www.e-lang.co.uk/mackichan/call/pron/type.htm
1.CONSONANT. A
SPEECH
sound distinct from a
VOWEL
(such as /b/ and /d/ in /bad/), and a
LETTER
of the
ALPHABET
that represents such a sound (such as b and d in bad).
In general usage, a distinction between spoken
consonants and written or printed consonants
is not always made, but specialists seek to keep the two distinct. For
some sounds and letters in English, the correspondence is
straightforward and unequivocal, such as d and the alveolar
PLOSIVE
sound it represents. For others, correspondences are equivocal and can
lead to uncertainty: for example, although the c in such words as
card, cord, and curd has the ‘hard’ value /k/, and
the c in such words as cent and city has the ‘soft’
value /s/, the c of Celt is /s/ for some, /k/ for others.
In ScoE, it is always /s/ in the name of the football team Glasgow
Celtic, but generally /k/ in such expressions as the Celtic
languages.
Spoken
consonants
In
PHONETICS,
consonants are discussed in terms of three
anatomical and physiological factors: the state of the glottis
(whether or not there is
VOICE
or vibration in the larynx), the place of articulation (that part
of the vocal apparatus with which the sound is most closely associated),
and the manner of articulation (how the sound is produced).
Following this order, the sound /k/ can be described as a ‘voiceless
velar plosive’, where voiceless refers to the state of the
glottis, velar to the velum as the place of articulation, and
plosive to the manner of articulation (the release of a blocked
stream of air). The consonant system of
English is conventionally presented on a grid with manner of
articulation shown horizontally and place of articulation vertically.
Voiced and voiceless pairs are in the same cells of the grid, with the
voiceless member of each pair to the left (see table).
|
|
Labial |
Dental |
Alveolar |
Palatal |
Velar |
|
Plosive |
p,b |
|
t, d |
|
k, g |
|
Affricate |
|
|
|
tʃ,dƷ |
|
|
Fricative |
f, v |
Ɵ, ð |
s, z |
ʃ, Ʒ |
|
|
Nasal |
m |
|
n |
|
ŋ |
|
Lateral |
|
|
l |
|
|
|
R-sound |
|
|
r |
|
|
|
Glides |
w |
|
|
j |
(w) |
Because of double articulation (pronunciation involving two places), /w/
occurs twice. The
ASPIRATE
/h/ is distinct from the other sounds because it is a
FRICATIVE
formed in the glottis. The grid shows that only obstruents (
STOP
and fricative consonants) enter into the
voiced/voiceless distinction. Other sounds can be assumed to be voiced,
so that /n/ for example can be described simply as an alveolar
NASAL.
Written and printed
consonants
In the Roman alphabet as adapted for English, 21 letters are commonly
described as consonants: that is, all save
a, e, i, o, u. Positionally, they
precede and/or follow the vowel in most
SYLLABLES:
to, ox, cup, fen, him, jab,
keep, queer, wig, veil, yes. Most may be
doubled (ebb, add, cuff; dabbed, runner,
selling), but doubling of k, v is rare (trekked,
revved), of h, j, q, x is abnormal (Ahh,
she sighed), and none is doubled initially in native English
words (but note Lloyd from Welsh, llama from Spanish).
Many doubled consonants arise at the
boundaries of affixes and roots, as with abbreviation,
accommodation, addition, affirmation, aggregation,
or before inflections, as in fitted/fitting, redder/reddest.
Consonants regularly occur in strings or
clusters without intervening vowels: initially, as in stain and
strip, finally, as in fetch and twelfth, medially,
as in dodging. Many clusters are digraphs, such as the ch
in chin, sh as in she, th as in both this
and thin, and ng as in sing. In addition, English
uses numerous other consonant digraphs that do
not represent a sound in any straightforward way; some, like ph
in photograph, are borrowed from other languages, while others,
like gh in though, trough are native to English but
have lost their original sound value.
The distinction between vowel and consonant
sounds and symbols is by no means always straightforward, as can be seen
from looking at aspects of the letters j, v, w,
y. Until at least the 18c, j and v (now established as
consonants) were widely regarded as variants
of the vowels i and u. In the 17c, the English alphabet
was considered to have 24 letters, not 26: j and v were
sometimes referred to as tayl'd i and pointed u. The
consonants w and y have some of
the characteristics of vowels: for example, compare suite/sweet,
laniard/lanyard. Phonetic analysis may class such letters as
either semiconsonants or semi-vowels. Many uses of y
parallel those of i: gypsy/gipsy, happy/Hopi. The
consonants l, m, n, r
also often have some of the qualities of vowels when used syllabically:
l in apple, m in spasm, n in isn't,
r in centre. In such positions, they are often pronounced
with a schwa preceding their consonant value.
Most consonant letters are sometimes ‘silent’:
that is, used with no sound value (some having lost it, others inserted
but never pronounced); b in numb, c in scythe;
comparably with handsome, foreign, honest, knee,
talk, mnemonic, damn, psychology, island,
hutch, wrong, prix, key, laissez-faire.
In general, consonant letters in English have
an uncertain relationship with speech sounds.
See
AFFRICATE,
AITCH,
APPROXIMANT,
CONSONANT
CLUSTER, DIGRAPH,
GLIDE,
LIQUID,
L-SOUNDS,
R-SOUNDS,
SIBILANT,
SILENT LETTER,
SPELLING,
and letter entries for consonants.
2.VOWEL
Originally, in ancient accounts of Greek and Latin, of a minimal unit of
speech that could be produced on its own and could, on its own, form a
syllable: e.g. [i:] in
Latin could form the one-syllable word i ‘go!’. Now, more
generally or more precisely, of one that is produced with
open approximation
and that characteristically forms the
nucleus (2)
of a syllable: e.g. [a] in bat [bat], [i:] in
bee [bi:], [a:]
in are [a:].
Distinguished as such from
syllabic consonants:
e.g. [l] as, uncharacteristically, a nucleus in battle ['batl].
Also from
semivowels,
e.g. [w] as the onset of a syllable in we [wi:], or
approximants.
See
vocoid
for a proposed distinction between a unit defined in purely phonetic
terms and one defined phonologically. Cf.
vocalic (2)
as a distinctive feature [± vocalic] combining with [± consonantal];
also, in some accounts, with [± syllabic].
3.Diphthong
A vowel whose quality changes perceptibly in one direction within a
single syllable: e.g. [aʊ]
in house, whose articulation changes from relatively open to
relatively close and back. Diphthongs are
falling
or
rising
according to which phase is more prominent.
A distinction might be drawn in principle between a phonetic
diphthong and a diphthong
in phonology, which would consist of a sequence of two vowel phonemes.
Thus the [aʊ]
of house is phonetically diphthongal, but different phonologists
have described it variously as a single phoneme, as a vowel plus another
vowel, or as a vowel plus a semivowel. Cf.
monophthong; triphthong.
" Concise Oxford
Companion to the English Language. Ed. Tom
McArthur.
Oxford English Dictionary
1.The
pronunciation of “kestrel”
: (kεstrɪl)
2.The
main definition of “philology”
in English.
Love of learning
and literature; the branch of knowledge that deals with the historical,
linguistic, interpretative, and critical aspects of literature; literary
or classical scholarship. Now chiefly
By
the late 19th cent. this general sense had become rare, but it
was revived, principally in the
3.The
etymology of “crow”
and look for the translation into Spanish.
[OE. cráwe
f., corresp. to OS. krâia, MLG. krâge, krâe, krâ,
LG. kraie, kreie, MDu. kraeye, Du. kraai,
OHG. chrâwa, chrâja, chrâ, crâwa, crâ,
MHG. kræe, krâwe, krâ, Ger. krähe; a WG.
deriv. of the vb. crâwan, crâian to
CROW, q.v.]