consonant
Sign in to saveIn articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for [h], which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and [b], pronounced with the lips; and [d], pronounced with the front of the tongue; and [g], pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced throughout the vocal tract; , [v], , and [z] pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and and , which have air flowing through the nose (nasals). Most consonants are pulmonic, using air pressure from the lung
AI overview
A consonant is a speech sound made by narrowing or closing off your vocal tract—the airway from your lungs to your lips—with parts of your mouth like your lips, tongue, or teeth. Consonants matter because they're fundamental building blocks of spoken language, forming the edges and structure of the words we speak, and they're produced in various ways including with the lips, tongue, and by forcing air through narrow channels.
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Article
10 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Consonant ''sounds'' and consonant ''letters''
- Consonants versus vowels
- Examples
- Most common
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Sources
- External links
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for [h], which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and [b], pronounced with the lips; and [d], pronounced with the front of the tongue; and [g], pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced throughout the vocal tract; , [v], , and [z] pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and and , 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 , , , and are used to extend the alphabet, though some letters and digraphs represent more than one consonant. For example, the sound spelled in "this" is a different consonant from the sound in "thin". (In the IPA, these are and , respectively.)