Consonant

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In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are Template:IPA and [b], pronounced with the lips; Template:IPA and [d], pronounced with the front of the tongue; Template:IPA and [g], pronounced with the back of the tongue; Template:IPA, pronounced throughout the vocal tract; Template:IPA, [v], Template:IPA, and [z] pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and Template:IPA and Template:IPA, which have air flowing through the nose (nasals). Most consonants are pulmonic, using air pressure from the lungs to generate a sound. Very few natural languages are non-pulmonic, making use of ejectives, implosives, and clicks. Contrasting with consonants are vowels.

Since the number of speech sounds in the world's languages is much greater than the number of letters in any one alphabet, linguists have devised systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to assign a unique and unambiguous symbol to each attested consonant. The English alphabet has fewer consonant letters than the English language has consonant sounds, so digraphs like Template:Angbr, Template:Angle bracket, Template:Angle bracket, and Template:Angle bracket are used to extend the alphabet, though some letters and digraphs represent more than one consonant. For example, the sound spelled Template:Angle bracket in "this" is a different consonant from the Template:Angle bracket sound in "thin". (In the IPA, these are Template:IPA and Template:IPA, respectively.)

Etymology

The word consonant comes from Latin oblique stem Template:Lang, from Template:Lang 'sounding-together', a calque of Greek Template:Lang Template:Lang (plural Template:Lang, Template:Lang).<ref>Template:LSJ</ref><ref>Robert K. Barnhart, ed., Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, Previously published as The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, originally ©1988 The H.W. Wilson Company; Edinburgh, reprinted 2001: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd., p. 210.</ref>

Dionysius Thrax, a Classical Greek grammarian, called consonants Template:Lang (Template:Lang 'sounded with') because in Greek, they can only be pronounced with a vowel.Template:Efn He divides them into two subcategories: Template:Lang (Template:Lang 'half-sounded'),<ref>Template:LSJ</ref> which are the continuants,Template:Efn and Template:Lang (Template:Lang 'unsounded'),<ref>Template:LSJ</ref> which correspond to plosives.Template:Efn

This description does not apply to some languages, such as the Salishan languages, in which plosives may occur without vowels (see Nuxalk), and the modern concept of "consonant" does not require co-occurrence with a vowel.

Consonant sounds and consonant letters

Template:Unreferenced section The word consonant may be used ambiguously for both speech sounds and the letters of the alphabet used to write them. In English, these letters are B, C, D, F, G, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, S, T, V, X, Z and often H, R, W, Y.

In English orthography, the letters H, R, W, Y and the digraph GH are used for both consonants and vowels. For instance, the letter Y stands for the consonant/semi-vowel Template:IPA in yoke, the vowel Template:IPA in myth, the vowel Template:IPA in funny, the diphthong Template:IPA in sky, and forms several digraphs for other diphthongs, such as say, boy, key. Similarly, R commonly indicates or modifies a vowel in non-rhotic accents.

This article is concerned with consonant sounds, however they are written.

Consonants versus vowels

Template:More citations needed section Consonants and vowels correspond to distinct parts of a syllable: The most sonorous part of the syllable (that is, the part that is easiest to singTemplate:Citation needed), 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 one side, there are vowel-like segments that are not in themselves syllabic, but form diphthongs as part of the syllable nucleus, as the i in English boil Template:IPA. On the other, there are approximants that behave like consonants in forming onsets, but are articulated very much like vowels, as the y in English yes Template:IPA. Some phonologistsTemplate:Who? model these as both being the underlying vowel Template:IPA, so that the English word bit would phonemically be Template:IPA, beet would be Template:IPA, and yield would be phonemically Template:IPA. Likewise, foot would be Template:IPA, food would be Template:IPA, wood would be Template:IPA, and wooed would be Template:IPA. However, there is a (perhaps allophonic) difference in articulation between these segments, with the Template:IPA in Template:IPA yes and Template:IPA yield and the Template:IPA of Template:IPA wooed having more constriction and a more definite place of articulation than the Template:IPA in Template:IPA boil or Template:IPA bit or the Template:IPA of Template:IPA foot.

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, Template:IPA, or a rhotic vowel, Template:IPA: Some distinguish an approximant Template:IPA that corresponds to a vowel Template:IPA, for rural as Template:IPA or Template:IPA; others see these as a single phoneme, Template:IPA.

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. In Mandarin, they are historically allophones of Template:IPA, and spelled that way in Pinyin. Ladefoged and Maddieson<ref name=SOWL>Template:SOWL</ref>Template:Page needed 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 Template:IPA and the lateral Template:IPA 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 Template:IPA (Template:IPA?) 'seal fat'. Miyako in Japan is similar, with Template:IPA 'to build' and Template:IPA 'to pull'.

Each spoken consonant can be distinguished by several phonetic features:

The manner of articulation is how air escapes from the vocal tract when the consonant or approximant (vowel-like) sound is made. Manners include stops, 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 as palatalisation or pharyngealisation. Consonants with two simultaneous places of articulation are said to be coarticulated.

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, and implosives use different mechanisms.

The length is how long the obstruction of a consonant lasts. This feature is borderline distinctive in English, as in "wholly" Template:IPA vs. "holy" Template:IPA, 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 timesTemplate:By who?, 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" Template:IPA. 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.

Consonants are scheduled by their features in a number of IPA charts: Template:IPA pulmonic consonants Template:IPA non-pulmonic consonants Template:IPA co-articulated consonants

Examples

The recently extinct Ubykh language had only 2 or 3 vowels but 84 consonants;<ref>Georges Dumézil and Tevfik Esenç, 1975, Le verbe oubykh: études descriptives et comparatives. Adrien Maisonneuve: Paris.</ref> the Taa language has 87 consonants under one analysis, 164 under another, plus some 30 vowels and tone.<ref>Naumann, Christfied (2008). "The Consonantal System of West !Xoon". 3rd International Symposium on Khoisan Languages and Linguistics. Riezlern.</ref> The types of consonants used in various languages are by no means universal. For instance, nearly all Australian languages lack fricatives; a large percentage of the world's languages lack voiced stops such as Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA as phonemes, though they may appear phonetically. Most languages, however, do include one or more fricatives, with Template:IPA being the most common, and a liquid consonant or two, with Template:IPA the most common. The approximant Template:IPA is also widespread, and virtually all languages have one or more nasals, though a very few, such as the Central dialect of Rotokas, lack even these. This last language has the smallest number of consonants in the world, with just six.

Most common

In rhotic American English, the consonants spoken most frequently are Template:IPA. (Template:IPA is less common in non-rhotic accents.)<ref>The most common sounds in spoken English The Language Nerds.</ref> The most frequent consonant in many other languages is Template:IPA.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The most universal consonants around the world (that is, the ones appearing in nearly all languages) are the three voiceless stops Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, and the two nasals Template:IPA, Template:IPA. However, even these common five are not completely universal. Several languages in the vicinity of the Sahara Desert, including Arabic, lack Template:IPA. Several languages of North America, such as Mohawk, lack both of the labials Template:IPA and Template:IPA. The Wichita language of Oklahoma and some West African languages, such as Ijo, lack the consonant Template:IPA on a phonemic level, but do use it phonetically, as an allophone of another consonant (of Template:IPA in the case of Ijo, and of Template:IPA in Wichita). A few languages on Bougainville Island and around Puget Sound, such as Makah, lack both of the nasals Template:IPA and Template:IPA altogether, except in special speech registers such as baby-talk. The 'click language' Nǁng lacks Template:IPA,Template:Efn and colloquial Samoan lacks both alveolars, Template:IPA and Template:IPA.Template:Efn Despite the 80-odd consonants of Ubykh, it lacks the plain velar Template:IPA in native words, as do the related Adyghe and Kabardian languages. But with a few striking exceptions, such as Xavante and Tahitian—which have no dorsal consonants whatsoever—nearly all other languages have at least one velar consonant: most of the few languages that do not have a simple Template:IPA (that is, a sound that is generally pronounced Template:IPA) have a consonant that is very similar.Template:Efn For instance, an areal feature of the Pacific Northwest coast is that historical *k has become palatalized in many languages, so that Saanich for example has Template:IPA and Template:IPA but no plain Template:IPA;<ref>Ian Maddieson and Sandra Ferrari Disner, 1984, Patterns of Sounds. Cambridge University Press</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> similarly, historical *k in the Northwest Caucasian languages became palatalized to Template:IPA in extinct Ubykh and to Template:IPA in most Circassian dialects.<ref>Viacheslav A. Chirikba, 1996, Common West Caucasian: the reconstruction of its phonological system and parts of its lexicon and morphology, p. 192. Research School CNWS: Leiden.</ref>