consonant 1. (a) A speech sound with or without vibration of the vocal cords (voice) in which the escape of air is at least partly obstructed; contrasted with a VOWEL.(b) A speech sound with or without voicing that functions marginally within a syllable.
The commonly accepted use of the term consonant is potentially ambiguous. Most consonants are defined in articulatory terms (as in 1 (a)), but also share the linguistic or phonological characteristic of being marginal to a syllable (1 (b)). Some speech sounds, however, overlap the two categories of vowel and consonant. Southern British /l/ and /r/ have vowel-like articulations, but are usually syllable-marginal; /m/ and /n/ can be either marginal (e.g. man) or syllabic (e.g. frighten); /w/ and /j/ (the initial sounds in wet and yes) are phonetically vowel-like but phonologically consonant-like and are classified as SEMI-VOWELS (or semi-consonants).
Because of these problems, it has sometimes been suggested that two separate pairs of words should be used, and the American linguist K. L. Pike (b. 1912) proposed retaining consonant and vowel for the sounds defined in phonological terms (i.e. in terms of their position in a syllable), and introduced contoid and vocoid for sounds as defined by acoustic or articulatory criteria.
2. (Traditionally) a letter representing a sound as defined in 1 (a)
The use of the word consonant to describe letters of the alphabet is better avoided, because of the discrepancy between symbol and sound; the letter y, for example, cannot satisfactorily be classified as only either consonant or vowel. Consonant letter may be considered more acceptable.
There are twenty-four consonant phonemes in standard English (RP): 6 PLOSIVES; 9 FRICATIVES; 2 AFFRICATES; 3 NASALS; 1 LATERAL; 1 FRICTIONLESS CONTINUANT and 2 SEMI-VOWELS. [See chart p. 444]
•• lost consonant: see SILENT LETTER.
See also DOUBLE CONSONANT, SEMI-VOWEL, VOWEL.
vowel 1. (a) A speech sound made with the vocal cords vibrating, but without any closure or stricture. Contrasted with CONSONANT.(b) A speech sound that is central to a syllable and therefore SYLLABIC.
2. Any of the letters a, e, i, o, u representing such a sound.
As with the word consonant, the term vowel suffers from ambiguity. Vowel sounds, defined both phonetically as in (1a) and phonologically as in (1b) are usually represented by vowel letters as in (2). But there are discrepancies. Hence the invention of the terms VOCOID and CONTOID. But these latter remain specialist terms; and vowel and consonant remain ambiguous.
Vowels (or vowel-like sounds) in modern definition can therefore include syllabic consonants, such as the second syllable of muddle [md.].
Several vowel sounds are sometimes represented in writing by a combination of vowel and consonant letters, e.g.
ah, key, half, part, law, new, day
The vowel system of English RP is usually analysed in terms of 12 PURE VOWELS (or MONOPHTHONGS), which may be long or short, and 8 DIPHTHONGS. Scottish English has only 10 monophthongs and 4 diphthongs.
Compare TRIPHTHONG.
•• vowel alternation: the same as ABLAUT.
vowel height: See HEIGHT.
diphthong 1. Phonetics. A vowel that changes its quality within the same single syllable. (Also called gliding vowel.)
The English diphthongs in modern standard RP are:
Three that glide towards an // sound from different starting points:
// as in day, late, rain, weigh, they, great
/a/ as in time, cry, high, height, die, dye, aisle, eider
// as in boy, voice
Two that glide towards //:
// as in so, road, toe, soul, know
/a/ as in house, now
Three that glide towards //:
// as in care, air, wear, their, there
// as in pure, during, tourist
// as in deer, dear, here, weird, idea
A diphthong gliding to a closer sound (i.e. one ending in // or // in English) is called a CLOSING diphthong; a diphthong finishing at // is called a CENTRING diphthong.
Formerly a fourth centring diphthong was used, //, which distinguished words such as floor /fl/ and flaw /fl/, but // has largely coalesced with // among standard speakers. A number of words formerly having //, such as moor and tour are also often now said with //: this has led to the proliferation of homophones (moor, more, maw; tour, tore, taw, tor; poor, pour, pore, paw; etc.).
Compare also MONOPHTHONG, TRIPHTHONG.
2. Two vowel letters representing(a) a diphthongal sound, as in rain /ren/ or toe /t/;(b) (more fully improper diphthong) a single vowel as in heat /hit/, soup /sup/.
Compare DIGRAPH.
• diphthongal. diphthongize:
(cause to) form or become a diphthong (in sense 1). diphthongization:
the process by which a single sound has become a diphthong through historical or dialect change (for examples, Compare BREAKING).
PHILOLOGY 3. The branch of knowledge that deals with the structure, historical development, and relationships of languages or language families; the historical study of the phonology and morphology of languages; historical linguistics. See also comparative philology at COMPARATIVE adj. 1b.
This sense has never been current in the United States, and is increasingly rare in British use. Linguistics is now the more usual term for the study of the structure of language, and (often with qualifying adjective, as historical, comparative, etc.) has generally replaced philology.
1716 M. DAVIES Athenæ Britannicæ III. 102 Harduin has there several erudite Remarks upon Philology: especially upon the Pronunciation and Dialects of the Greek Tongue. 1749 D. HARTLEY Observ. Man I. iii. 353 Philology, or the Knowledge of Words, and their Significations. 1816 J. GILCHRIST Philos. Etymol. p. vii, Whether that gentleman shall choose a lexicographic department in the field of philology. 1838 W. B. WINNING (title) Manual of comparative philology. 1852 J. S. BLACKIE On Stud. Lang. 7 Philology unfolds the genesis of those laws of speech, which Grammar contemplates as a finished result. 1902 L. MEAD Word-coinage vi, Professor Bréal has blazed the way for future explorers in the wilderness of philology. 1964 R. H. ROBINS Gen. Ling. i. 6 In British usage philology is generally equivalent to comparative philology, an older and still quite common term for what linguists technically refer to as comparative and historical linguistics. 2002 Isis 93 503/1 The Leipzig neogrammarian philologists, who rejected Indo-European philology for a universal science of language.
CROW
[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.]
1. a. A bird of the genus Corvus; in England commonly applied to the Carrion Crow (Corvus Corone), ‘a large black bird that feeds upon the carcasses of beasts’ (Johnson); in the north of England, Scotland, and Ireland to the Rook, C. frugilegus; in U.S. to a closely allied gregarious species, C. americanus.
cuervo.
(Del lat. corvus).
1. m. Pájaro carnívoro, mayor que la paloma, de plumaje negro con visos pavonados, pico cónico, grueso y más largo que la cabeza, tarsos fuertes, alas de un metro de envergadura, con las mayores remeras en medio, y cola de contorno redondeado.
consonant 1. (a) A speech sound with or without vibration of the vocal cords (voice) in which the escape of air is at least partly obstructed; contrasted with a VOWEL.(b) A speech sound with or without voicing that functions marginally within a syllable.
The commonly accepted use of the term consonant is potentially ambiguous. Most consonants are defined in articulatory terms (as in 1 (a)), but also share the linguistic or phonological characteristic of being marginal to a syllable (1 (b)). Some speech sounds, however, overlap the two categories of vowel and consonant. Southern British /l/ and /r/ have vowel-like articulations, but are usually syllable-marginal; /m/ and /n/ can be either marginal (e.g. man) or syllabic (e.g. frighten); /w/ and /j/ (the initial sounds in wet and yes) are phonetically vowel-like but phonologically consonant-like and are classified as SEMI-VOWELS (or semi-consonants).
Because of these problems, it has sometimes been suggested that two separate pairs of words should be used, and the American linguist K. L. Pike (b. 1912) proposed retaining consonant and vowel for the sounds defined in phonological terms (i.e. in terms of their position in a syllable), and introduced contoid and vocoid for sounds as defined by acoustic or articulatory criteria.
2. (Traditionally) a letter representing a sound as defined in 1 (a)
The use of the word consonant to describe letters of the alphabet is better avoided, because of the discrepancy between symbol and sound; the letter y, for example, cannot satisfactorily be classified as only either consonant or vowel. Consonant letter may be considered more acceptable.
There are twenty-four consonant phonemes in standard English (RP): 6 PLOSIVES; 9 FRICATIVES; 2 AFFRICATES; 3 NASALS; 1 LATERAL; 1 FRICTIONLESS CONTINUANT and 2 SEMI-VOWELS. [See chart p. 444]
•• lost consonant: see SILENT LETTER.
See also DOUBLE CONSONANT, SEMI-VOWEL, VOWEL.
vowel 1. (a) A speech sound made with the vocal cords vibrating, but without any closure or stricture. Contrasted with CONSONANT.(b) A speech sound that is central to a syllable and therefore SYLLABIC.
2. Any of the letters a, e, i, o, u representing such a sound.
As with the word consonant, the term vowel suffers from ambiguity. Vowel sounds, defined both phonetically as in (1a) and phonologically as in (1b) are usually represented by vowel letters as in (2). But there are discrepancies. Hence the invention of the terms VOCOID and CONTOID. But these latter remain specialist terms; and vowel and consonant remain ambiguous.
Vowels (or vowel-like sounds) in modern definition can therefore include syllabic consonants, such as the second syllable of muddle [md.].
Several vowel sounds are sometimes represented in writing by a combination of vowel and consonant letters, e.g.
ah, key, half, part, law, new, day
The vowel system of English RP is usually analysed in terms of 12 PURE VOWELS (or MONOPHTHONGS), which may be long or short, and 8 DIPHTHONGS. Scottish English has only 10 monophthongs and 4 diphthongs.
Compare TRIPHTHONG.
•• vowel alternation: the same as ABLAUT.
vowel height: See HEIGHT.
diphthong 1. Phonetics. A vowel that changes its quality within the same single syllable. (Also called gliding vowel.)
The English diphthongs in modern standard RP are:
Three that glide towards an // sound from different starting points:
// as in day, late, rain, weigh, they, great
/a/ as in time, cry, high, height, die, dye, aisle, eider
// as in boy, voice
Two that glide towards //:
// as in so, road, toe, soul, know
/a/ as in house, now
Three that glide towards //:
// as in care, air, wear, their, there
// as in pure, during, tourist
// as in deer, dear, here, weird, idea
A diphthong gliding to a closer sound (i.e. one ending in // or // in English) is called a CLOSING diphthong; a diphthong finishing at // is called a CENTRING diphthong.
Formerly a fourth centring diphthong was used, //, which distinguished words such as floor /fl/ and flaw /fl/, but // has largely coalesced with // among standard speakers. A number of words formerly having //, such as moor and tour are also often now said with //: this has led to the proliferation of homophones (moor, more, maw; tour, tore, taw, tor; poor, pour, pore, paw; etc.).
Compare also MONOPHTHONG, TRIPHTHONG.
2. Two vowel letters representing(a) a diphthongal sound, as in rain /ren/ or toe /t/;(b) (more fully improper diphthong) a single vowel as in heat /hit/, soup /sup/.
Compare DIGRAPH.
• diphthongal. diphthongize:
(cause to) form or become a diphthong (in sense 1). diphthongization:
the process by which a single sound has become a diphthong through historical or dialect change (for examples, Compare BREAKING).
PHILOLOGY 3. The branch of knowledge that deals with the structure, historical development, and relationships of languages or language families; the historical study of the phonology and morphology of languages; historical linguistics. See also comparative philology at COMPARATIVE adj. 1b.
This sense has never been current in the United States, and is increasingly rare in British use. Linguistics is now the more usual term for the study of the structure of language, and (often with qualifying adjective, as historical, comparative, etc.) has generally replaced philology.
1716 M. DAVIES Athenæ Britannicæ III. 102 Harduin has there several erudite Remarks upon Philology: especially upon the Pronunciation and Dialects of the Greek Tongue. 1749 D. HARTLEY Observ. Man I. iii. 353 Philology, or the Knowledge of Words, and their Significations. 1816 J. GILCHRIST Philos. Etymol. p. vii, Whether that gentleman shall choose a lexicographic department in the field of philology. 1838 W. B. WINNING (title) Manual of comparative philology. 1852 J. S. BLACKIE On Stud. Lang. 7 Philology unfolds the genesis of those laws of speech, which Grammar contemplates as a finished result. 1902 L. MEAD Word-coinage vi, Professor Bréal has blazed the way for future explorers in the wilderness of philology. 1964 R. H. ROBINS Gen. Ling. i. 6 In British usage philology is generally equivalent to comparative philology, an older and still quite common term for what linguists technically refer to as comparative and historical linguistics. 2002 Isis 93 503/1 The Leipzig neogrammarian philologists, who rejected Indo-European philology for a universal science of language.
CROW
[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.]
1. a. A bird of the genus Corvus; in England commonly applied to the Carrion Crow (Corvus Corone), ‘a large black bird that feeds upon the carcasses of beasts’ (Johnson); in the north of England, Scotland, and Ireland to the Rook, C. frugilegus; in U.S. to a closely allied gregarious species, C. americanus.
cuervo.
(Del lat. corvus).
1. m. Pájaro carnívoro, mayor que la paloma, de plumaje negro con visos pavonados, pico cónico, grueso y más largo que la cabeza, tarsos fuertes, alas de un metro de envergadura, con las mayores remeras en medio, y cola de contorno redondeado.