In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of Phonetics. Within Phonetics, a phone is a speech sound or gesture considered a physical event without regard to its place in the Phonology of a Language The vocal tract is that cavity in animals and humans where sound that is produced at the sound source ( Larynx in mammals syrinx in birds is filtered The larynx (plural larynges) colloquially known as the voicebox, is an organ in the Neck of Mammals involved in protection of the

Since the number of consonants in the world's languages is much greater than the number of consonant letters in any one alphabet, linguists have devised systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to assign a unique symbol to each attested consonant. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields The musical instrument is spelled Cymbal. A symbol is something --- such as an object, Picture, written word a sound a piece In fact, the Latin alphabet, which is used to write English, has fewer consonant letters than English has consonant sounds, so digraphs like "ch", "sh", "th", and "zh" are used to extend the alphabet, and some letters and digraphs represent more than one consonant. A digraph, bigraph, or digram is a pair of characters used to write one Phoneme (distinct sound or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond For example, many speakers are not aware that the sound spelled "th" in "this" is a different consonant than the "th" sound in "thing". (In the IPA they are transcribed ð and θ, respectively. )

Origin of the term

The word consonant comes from Latin oblique stem cōnsonant-, from cōnsonāns (littera) "sounding-together (letter)", a loan translation of Greek σύμφωνον sýmphōnon. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. In Linguistics, a calque (kælk or loan translation is a Word or Phrase borrowed from another Language by Literal, word-for-word ^[1] As originally conceived by Plato,^[2] sýmphōna were specifically the stop consonants, described as "not being pronounceable without an adjacent vowel sound". A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. ^[3] Thus the term did not cover continuant consonants, which occur without vowels in a minority of languages, for example at the ends of the English words bottle and button. A continuant is a Sound produced with an incomplete closure of the Vocal tract. (The final vowel letters e and o in these words are only a product of orthography; Plato was concerned with pronunciation. )

However, even Plato's original conception of consonant is inadequate for the universal description of human language, since in some languages, such as the Salishan languages, stop consonants may also occur without vowels (see Nuxálk), and the modern conception of consonant does not require cooccurrence with vowels. In the Philosophy of language, a natural language (or ordinary language) is a Language that is spoken or written in phonemic-alphabetic or phonemically-related This article is about the Salish/Salishan language For the Tacoma Washington neighborhood see Salishan Tacoma Washington. Nuxálk (also Bella Coola) is a Salishan language spoken in the vicinity of the Canadian town Bella Coola British Columbia by approximately

Consonantal features

Each consonant can be distinguished by several features:^[4]

• The manner of articulation is the method that the consonant is articulated, such as nasal (through the nose), stop (complete obstruction of air), or approximant (vowel like). In Linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonological structure that may be analyzed in phonological theory In Linguistics ( Articulatory phonetics) manner of articulation describes how the tongue lips and other speech organs are involved in making a sound make A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants
• The place of articulation is where in the vocal tract the obstruction of the consonant occurs, and which speech organs are involved. In Articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a Consonant is the point of contact where an Obstruction Places include bilabial (both lips), alveolar (tongue against the gum ridge), and velar (tongue against soft palate). In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Additionally, there may be a simultaneous narrowing at another place of articulation, such as palatalisation or pharyngealisation. Palatalization or palatalisation (ˌpælətəlɨˈzeɪʃən generally refers to two phenomena As a process or the result of a process Pharyngealization is a Secondary articulation of Consonants or Vowels by which the Pharynx or Epiglottis is constricted during the articulation
• The phonation of a consonant is how the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation. Phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of Phonetics. The vocal folds, also known commonly as vocal cords, are composed of twin infoldings of Mucous membrane stretched horizontally across the Larynx. When the vocal cords vibrate fully, the consonant is called voiced; when they do not vibrate at all, it's voiceless. Voice or voicing is a term used in Phonetics and Phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless Voice or voicing is a term used in Phonetics and Phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless
• The voice onset time (VOT) indicates the timing of the phonation. Aspiration is a feature of VOT. Description Voiceless consonants are produced with the Vocal cords open and voiced consonants are produced when the vocal folds are fractionally closed
• The airstream mechanism is how the air moving through the vocal tract is powered. In Phonetics, the airstream mechanism is the method by which airflow is created in the vocal tract Most languages have exclusively pulmonic egressive consonants, which use the lungs and diaphragm, but ejectives, clicks, and implosives use different mechanisms. In human speech egressive sounds are those in which the air stream is created by pushing air out through the mouth or nose In Phonetics, ejective consonants are Voiceless Consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the Glottis. Clicks are speech sounds such as English tsk! tsk! used to express disapproval or the tchick! used to spur on a horse Implosive consonants are stops (rarely Affricates with a mixed Glottalic ingressive and Pulmonic egressive Airstream mechanism.
• The length is how long the obstruction of a consonant lasts. In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant. This feature is borderline distinctive in English, as in "wholly" [hoʊlli] vs. "holy" [hoʊli], 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". In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant. 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. Estonian (; ˈeːsti ˈkeːl is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1 Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Finnic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway
• 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 stop consonant" [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. Fortis ( Latin "strong" and lenis ("weak" are linguistic terms Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning

Consonant as a symbol

Main article: Writing system

The word consonant is also used to refer to a letter of an alphabet that denotes a consonant sound. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. A letter is an element in an Alphabetic system of writing such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either Consonant letters in the English alphabet are B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Z, and usually W and Y: The letter Y stands for the consonant [j] in "yoke", and for the vowel [ɪ] in "myth", for example; W is almost always a consonant except in rare words (mostly loanwords from Welsh) like "crwth" "cwm". B is the second letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled bee or occasionally be (biː plural bees. C is the third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled cee or occasionally ce (siː D is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled dee or occasionally de (diː F is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ef or eff (ɛf G is the seventh letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled gee or occasionally ge (dʒiː J is the tenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet; it was the last of the 26 letters to be added K is the eleventh letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled kay (keɪ L is the twelfth letter of the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is el or occasionally ell (ɛl M is the thirteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled em (ɛm N is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled en (ɛn P is the sixteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled pee or occasionally pe (piː Q is the seventeenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled cue (kjuː R is the eighteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ar (ɑr pronounced or) S is the nineteenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ess or occasionally es (ɛs generally es- T is the twentieth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled tee or occasionally te (tiː V is the twenty-second letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled vee or occasionally ve (viː X is the twenty-fourth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ex or occasionally ecks (ɛks plural exes Z is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the modern Latin alphabet. W is the twenty-third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled double-u (ˈdʌbljuː The letter Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation Welsh ( cy Cymraeg or cy y Gymraeg, kəmˈrɑːɨɡ and {{IPA|[ə ɡəmˈrɑːɨɡ]}}, is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic

Consonants and 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. A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds In Phonetics and Phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a Syllable that precedes the Syllable nucleus. In Phonology, a syllable coda comprises the Consonant sounds of a Syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a Vowel 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. Semivowels — also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels —are Vowels that form Diphthongs with full syllabic vowels On the one side, there are vowel-like segments which are not in themselves syllabic, but which form diphthongs as part of the syllable nucleus, as the i in English boil [ˈbɔɪ̯l]. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with On the other, there are approximants which behave like consonants in forming onsets, but are articulated very much like vowels, as the y in English yes [ˈjɛs]. Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Some phonologists model these as both being the vowel /i/, so that the English word bit would phonemically be /bit/, beet would be /bii̯t/, and yield would be phonemically /i̯ii̯ld/. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU Similarly, foot would be /fut/, food would be /fuu̯d/, wood would be /u̯ud/, and wooed would be /u̯uu̯d/. However, there is a (perhaps allophonic) difference in articulation between these segments, with the [j] in [ˈjɛs] yes and [ˈjiʲld] yield and the [w] of [ˈwuʷd] wooed having more constriction and a more definite place of articulation than the [ɪ] in [ˈbɔɪ̯l] boil or [ˈbɪt] bit or the [ʊ] of [ˈfʊt].

The other problematic area is that of syllabic consonants, that is, segments which are articulated as consonants but which occupy 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, /ˈtʃɹ̩tʃ/, or a rhotic vowel, /ˈtʃɝtʃ/: Some distinguish an approximant /ɹ/ that corresponds to a vowel /ɝ/, for rural as /ˈɹɝl/ or [ˈɹʷɝːl̩]; others see these as the a single phoneme, /ˈɹɹ̩l/.

Other languages utilize fricative and often trilled segments as syllabic nuclei, as in Czech and several languages in Congo and China, including Mandarin Chinese. Czech (ˈʧɛk čeština ˈʧɛʃcɪna in Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers it is the majority language in the In Mandarin, they are historically allophones of /i/, and spelled that way in Pinyin. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use Ladefoged and Maddieson^[4] 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 [r̩] and the lateral [l̩] as syllabic nuclei (see Words without vowels), and in languages like Nuxalk, it is difficult to know what the nucleus of a syllable is (it may be that not all syllables have nuclei), though if the concept of 'syllable' applies, there are syllabic consonants in words like /sx̩s/ 'seal fat'. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages In non-rhotic English dialects, such as Received Pronunciation, every Lexical word must contain at least one spoken vowel in its pronunciation Nuxálk (also Bella Coola) is a Salishan language spoken in the vicinity of the Canadian town Bella Coola British Columbia by approximately

See also

• Articulatory phonetics
• Table of consonants
• List of consonants
• List of phonetics topics
• Words without vowels

References

External links

• interactive manner and place of articulation

References

Ian Maddieson, Patterns of Sounds, Cambridge University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-521-26536-3