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    Consonants Versus Vowels: Peak or Nucleus, Is Typically A Vowel, While The Less Sonorous Margins (Called

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    Judith Donado
    The document discusses the distinction between consonants and vowels in language. Consonants typically form the onset and coda of syllables, surrounding the nucleus which is usually a vowel. However, the distinction is blurry as some languages have syllabic consonants or non-syllabic vowels. Approximants like [j] and [w] can behave as either consonants or vowels depending on context. The categorization of segments on the boundary between consonants and vowels varies between phonological theories and languages.

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    Consonants Versus Vowels: Peak or Nucleus, Is Typically A Vowel, While The Less Sonorous Margins (Called

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    Judith Donado
    74 views4 pages
    The document discusses the distinction between consonants and vowels in language. Consonants typically form the onset and coda of syllables, surrounding the nucleus which is usually a vowel. However, the distinction is blurry as some languages have syllabic consonants or non-syllabic vowels. Approximants like [j] and [w] can behave as either consonants or vowels depending on context. The categorization of segments on the boundary between consonants and vowels varies between phonological theories and languages.

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    Consonants Versus Vowels

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    The document discusses the distinction between consonants and vowels in language. Consonants typically form the onset and coda of syllables, surrounding the nucleus which is usually a vowel. However, the distinction is blurry as some languages have syllabic consonants or non-syllabic vowels. Approximants like [j] and [w] can behave as either consonants or vowels depending on context. The categorization of segments on the boundary between consonants and vowels varies between phonological theories and languages.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    74 views4 pages

    Consonants Versus Vowels: Peak or Nucleus, Is Typically A Vowel, While The Less Sonorous Margins (Called

    Uploaded by

    Judith Donado
    The document discusses the distinction between consonants and vowels in language. Consonants typically form the onset and coda of syllables, surrounding the nucleus which is usually a vowel. However, the distinction is blurry as some languages have syllabic consonants or non-syllabic vowels. Approximants like [j] and [w] can behave as either consonants or vowels depending on context. The categorization of segments on the boundary between consonants and vowels varies between phonological theories and languages.

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    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    Consonants versus vowels

    Consonants and vowels correspond to distinct parts of a syllable: The most sonorous part of the syllable (that is, the part that's easiest to sing), called the syllabic peak or nucleus, is typically a vowel, while the less sonorous margins (called the onset and coda) are typically consonants. Such syllables may be abbreviated CV, V, and CVC, where C stands for consonant and V stands for vowel. This can be argued to be the only pattern found in most of the world's languages, and perhaps the primary pattern in all of them. However, the distinction between consonant and vowel is not always clear cut: there are syllabic consonants and non-syllabic vowels in many of the world's languages. One blurry area is in segments variously called semivowels, semiconsonants, or glides. On the one side, there are vowel-like segments that are not in themselves syllabic but that form diphthongs as part of the syllable nucleus, as the i in English boil [b l]. On the other, there areapproximants that behave like consonants in forming onsets but are articulated very much like vowels, as the y in English yes [js]. Some phonologists model these as both being the underlying vowel /i/, so that the English word bit would phonemically be /bit/, beet would be /biit/, and yield would be phonemically /iiild/. Likewise, foot would be /fut/, food would be /fuud/, wood would be /uud/, and wooed would be /uuud/. However, there is a (perhaps allophonic) difference in articulation between these segments, with the [j] in [js] yes and [jild] yield and the [w] of[wud] wooed having constriction and a more definite place of articulation the [ ] in [b l] boil or [b t] bit or the [] of [ft]. more than

    The other problematic area is that of syllabic consonants, segments articulated as consonants but occupying the nucleus of a syllable. This may be the case for words such as church in rhotic dialects of English, although phoneticians differ in whether they consider this to be a syllabic consonant, /t t/, or a rhotic vowel, /tt/: Some distinguish an approximant / / that corresponds to a vowel //, for rural as / l/ or[ l]; others see these as a single phoneme, / l/. Other languages use fricative and often trilled segments as syllabic nuclei, as in Czech and several languages in Democratic Republic of the Congo, and China, including Mandarin Chinese. In Mandarin, they are historically allophones of /i/, and spelled that way in Pinyin. Ladefoged and Maddieson[8] call these "fricative vowels" and say that "they can usually be thought of as syllabic fricatives that are allophones of vowels." That is, phonetically they are consonants, but phonemically they behave as vowels.

    Many Slavic languages allow the trill [r] and the lateral [l] as syllabic nuclei (see Words without vowels). In languages like Nuxalk, it is difficult to know what the nucleus of a syllable is, or if all syllables even have nuclei. If the concept of 'syllable' applies in Nuxalk, there are syllabic consonants in words like /sxs/ (/sxs/?) 'seal fat'. Miyako in Japan is similar, with /fks/ 'to build' and /psks/ 'to pull'.

    Features Each spoken consonant can be distinguished by several phonetic features:[8]

    The manner of articulation is how air escapes from the vocal tract when the consonant or approximant (vowel-like) sound is made. Manners include plosives, fricatives, and nasals. The place of articulation is where in the vocal tract the obstruction of the consonant occurs, and which speech organs are involved. Places include bilabial (both lips), alveolar (tongue against the gum ridge), and velar (tongue against soft palate). In addition, there may be a simultaneous narrowing at another place of articulation, such aspalatalisation or pharyngealisation. The phonation of a consonant is how the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation. When the vocal cords vibrate fully, the consonant is called voiced; when they do not vibrate at all, it is voiceless. The voice onset time (VOT) indicates the timing of the phonation. Aspiration is a feature of VOT. The airstream mechanism is how the air moving through the vocal tract is powered. Most languages have exclusively pulmonic egressive consonants, which use the lungs and diaphragm, but ejectives, clicks, andimplosives use different mechanisms. The length is how long the obstruction of a consonant lasts. This feature is borderline distinctive in English, as in "wholly" [holli] vs. "holy" [holi], but cases are limited to morpheme boundaries. Unrelated roots are differentiated in various languages such as Italian, Japanese, and Finnish, with two length levels, "single" and "geminate".Estonian and some Sami languages have three phonemic lengths: short, geminate, and long geminate, although the distinction between the geminate and overlong geminate includes suprasegmental features. The articulatory force is how much muscular energy is involved. This has been proposed many times, but no distinction relying exclusively on force has ever been demonstrated.

    All English consonants can be classified by a combination of these features, such as "voiceless alveolar plosive" [t]. In this case, the airstream mechanism is omitted.

    Some pairs of consonants like p::b, t::d are sometimes called fortis and lenis, but this is a phonological rather than phonetic distinction.

    V T E

    IPA pulmonic consonants chartchart image


    Labial Bilabial Labio dental Dental

    audio

    Place

    Coronal Alveolar Postalv. Retroflex Palatal

    Dorsal Velar Uvular

    Radical Pharyn geal Epiglottal

    Glottal Glottal

    Manner Nasal Plosive Fricative Approximant Trill Flap or tap Lateral Fric. Lateral Appr. Lateral flap

    m p b f

    t v s

    n d z

    j k x q

    * h

    r l

    Consonants are scheduled by their features in a number of IPA charts:

    Non-pulmonic consonants
    Clicks

    q c s

    q k x

    These tables contain phonetic symbols, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] Where symbols appear in pairs, leftright represent the voicelessvoiced consonants. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged to be impossible. * Symbol not defined in IPA.

    Implosives

    Ejectives

    f ts

    t c t kx k Affricates Co-articulated consonants


    Fricatives Approximants

    ts dz t d t d t d c c k

    Stops

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