Describe vowel and consonant sounds. Phonetic cheat sheet

Sounds are divided into vowels and consonants. They have different natures. They are pronounced and perceived differently, and also behave differently in speech and play different roles in it.

Vowels- these are sounds during the pronunciation of which air passes freely through the oral cavity without encountering an obstacle on its way. Pronunciation (articulation) is not focused in one place: the quality of vowels is determined by the shape of the oral cavity, which acts as a resonator. When articulating vowels, the vocal cords in the larynx work. They are close, tense and vibrate. Therefore, when pronouncing vowels, we hear a voice. Vowels can be drawn out. You can shout them. And if you put your hand to your throat, you can feel the work of the vocal cords when pronouncing vowels, feel it with your hand. Vowels are the basis of a syllable; they organize it. There are as many syllables in a word as there are vowels. For example: He– 1 syllable, she– 2 syllables, Guys– 3 syllables, etc. There are words that consist of one vowel sound. For example, unions: and, and and interjections: Oh!, Ah!, Oooh! and others.

In a word, vowels can be in stressed and unstressed syllables.
Stressed syllable one in which the vowel is pronounced clearly and appears in its basic form.
IN unstressed syllables vowels are modified and pronounced differently. Changing vowels in unstressed syllables is called reduction. There are six stressed vowels in the Russian language: [a], [o], [u], [s], [i], [e].

There are only 21 consonant letters. Consonant sounds are formed due to an obstruction that appears in the mouth during the passage of air flow. The role of an obstruction can be played by teeth, tongue, lips; depending on the nature of the obstruction, consonants are divided into many groups, for example, labial, dental, etc. Consonants are also divided into hard and soft, voiceless and voiced.

Hard consonants are pronounced more roughly, while soft ones sound more graceful and are softened by a nearby vowel or in writing using a soft sign. In transcription, soft sounds are indicated by an adjacent apostrophe. For example, in the word HOUSE the letter “d” sounds hard, but in the word GO it sounds soft.

Voiceless consonant sounds are pronounced without the participation of the voice, while in the formation of hard sounds the participation of the voice is necessary. Voiced and unvoiced sounds, as a rule, form a pair, for example: B-P, V-F, etc.

There are only a few sounds that do not have a voiced-voiced pair: Shch, Ts, Y, R, L, M, N.

1. The formation of vowels is based on the active work of the vocal cords. Consonants are characterized by active work of the speech organs in the oral cavity.

2. The basis of a vowel sound is the voice, the basis of a consonant sound is noise, as a result of air overcoming an obstacle in the oral cavity.

3. Vowels are formed by a weak pressure of an air stream, consonants are formed by a strong one, since the air needs to overcome an obstacle in the oral cavity.

4. When forming vowels, all organs of the oral cavity are tensed evenly. When a consonant is formed, those organs of speech are tense, in the area of ​​which a barrier is formed that the air must overcome.

5. When forming vowels, the air stream does not encounter any obstacles on the way; when forming consonants, the air stream must overcome an obstacle on its way in the oral cavity.

6. Vowels can sound with more or less force, which allows them to be the bearer of stress. Consonants are always pronounced with the same force.

7. Greater pronunciation power makes it possible for vowels to form a syllable, i.e. vowels are syllabic vowels in Russian. Consonants, due to their low sonority, are not capable of forming a syllable in the Russian language.

The vowel system is called vocalism, and the consonant system is called consonantism.

Vowel sounds are classified according to various criteria.

There are six vowel sounds in the Russian literary language: [i], [e], [s], [a], [o], [u].

They are most clearly heard under stress.

Classification of vowel sounds is made according to the work of the lips and tongue.

The sound [and] after a hard consonant or at the junction of words is replaced by the sound [s].

Vowel sounds are characterized by the presence of a musical tone, a voice formed by the rhythmic vibrations of the vocal cords in the larynx.

The difference between vowels is determined by the volume and shape of the resonators, cavities of the pharynx and mouth, which change with different positions of the lips, tongue and lower jaw.

Articulatory classification of vowel sounds is made according to the following criteria:

1) position in relation to stress (stressed vowel, vowel of the first pre-stressed syllable, remaining unstressed syllables);

2) method of formation, vertical position of the tongue, elevation (upper, middle, lower);

3) place of formation, horizontal position of the tongue, row (anterior, middle, posterior);

4) presence or absence of labialization, rounding (labialized, non-labialized);

5) the quality of the vowel associated with accommodation (tension, closedness or advancement into the anterior zone of formation at the beginning, at the end, throughout the entire articulation).

Table of articulatory classification of vowels. Stressed vowels

Vowels of the first pre-stressed syllable

Vowels of other unstressed syllables

What is the difference between vowels and consonants and letters and sounds? What rules do they obey? How are the hardness and softness of sounds and letters indicated? You will receive answers to all these questions in this article.

General information about vowels and consonants

Vowels and consonants represent the basis of the entire Russian language. After all, with the help of their combinations, syllables are formed that form words, expressions, sentences, texts, etc. That is why quite a lot of hours are devoted to this topic in high school.

and sounds in Russian

A person learns what vowels and consonants are in the Russian alphabet already from the first grade. And despite the apparent simplicity of this topic, it is considered one of the most difficult for students.

So, in the Russian language there are ten vowel letters, namely: o, i, a, y, yu, ya, e, e, u, e. During their immediate pronunciation, you can feel how air passes freely through the oral cavity. At the same time, we hear our own voice quite clearly. It should also be noted that vowel sounds can be drawn out (a-a-a-a, uh-uh-uh, i-i-i-i-i, u-u-u-u-u and so on ).

Features and letters

Vowels are the basis of a syllable, that is, they are the ones who organize it. As a rule, Russian words have as many syllables as vowels themselves. Let's give a clear example: u-che-ni-ki - 5 syllables, re-bya-ta - 3 syllables, he - 1 syllable, o-no - 2 syllables, and so on. There are even words that consist of only one vowel sound. Usually these are interjections (A!, Oh!, Oooh!) and conjunctions (and, a, etc.).

Endings, suffixes and prefixes are very important topics in the Russian Language discipline. After all, without knowing how such letters are written in a particular word, it is quite problematic to compose a literate letter.

Consonants and sounds in Russian

Vowels and consonants letters and sounds vary significantly. And if the first ones can be easily pulled out, then the latter ones are pronounced as briefly as possible (except for hissing ones, since they can be pulled out).

It should be noted that in the Russian alphabet the number of consonant letters is 21, namely: b, v, g, d, zh, z, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, f, x, ts, h, w, shch. The sounds they denote are usually divided into dull and voiced. What is the difference? The fact is that during the pronunciation of voiced consonants, a person can hear not only the characteristic noise, but also his own voice (b!, z!, r!, etc.). As for the deaf, there is no way to pronounce them loudly or, for example, shout. They only create a kind of noise (sh-sh-sh-sh-sh, s-s-s-s-s, etc.).

Thus, almost everything is divided into two different categories:

• voiced - b, c, d, d, g, z, j, l, m, n, r;
• deaf - k, p, s, t, f, x, c, ch, sh.

Softness and hardness of consonants

Not everyone knows, but vowels and consonants can be hard and soft. This is the second most important feature in the Russian language (after voicedness and voicelessness).

A distinctive feature of soft consonants is that during their pronunciation the human tongue takes a special position. As a rule, it moves slightly forward, and its entire middle part rises slightly. As for when pronouncing them, the tongue is pulled back. You can compare the position of your speech organ yourself: [n] - [n’], [t] - [t’]. It should also be noted that voiced and soft sounds sound slightly higher than hard ones.

In the Russian language, almost all consonants have pairs based on softness and hardness. However, there are also those who simply do not have them. These include hard ones - [zh], [sh] and [ts] and soft ones - [th"], [h"] and [sh"].

Softness and hardness of vowel sounds

Surely few people have heard that the Russian language has soft vowels. Soft consonants are sounds quite familiar to us, which cannot be said about the above-mentioned ones. This is partly due to the fact that in secondary school practically no time is devoted to this topic. After all, it is already clear with the help of which vowels the consonants become soft. However, we still decided to dedicate you to this topic.

So, those letters that are capable of softening the consonants preceding them are called soft. These include the following: i, e, i, e, yu. As for letters such as a, y, y, e, o, they are considered hard because they do not soften the consonants in front. To see this, here are a few examples:

Indication of the softness of consonant letters during phonetic analysis of a word

Phonetics studies the sounds and letters of the Russian language. Surely, in high school you were asked more than once to make a word. During such an analysis, it is imperative to indicate whether it is separately considered or not. If yes, then it must be designated as follows: [n’], [t’], [d’], [v’], [m’], [p’]. That is, at the top right next to the consonant letter before the soft vowel, you need to put a kind of dash. The following soft sounds are marked with a similar icon - [th"], [h"] and [w"].

Vowels are speech sounds, the main functional feature of which is their role in syllable formation: a vowel always forms the top of a syllable. The articulatory and acoustic characteristics of vowels do not allow us to talk about their fundamental differences with consonants: when vowels are called “mouth openers,” they lose sight of the fact that in reality the narrowing formed during the articulation of some closed vowels may be no less than the narrowing formed during the formation of some consonants; An acoustic feature of vowels is considered to be that during their formation only the vocal source acts, but this is not a specific property of vowels, because and some sonorant consonants are formed only with the participation of a vocal source. When articulating vowels, the position of the tongue is taken into account - the degree of elevation of the tongue towards the hard palate and its advancement forward or backward in the mouth and lips.
Based on their rise, they distinguish vowels of the upper (closed or narrow), middle and lower (open or wide) rise; by advancement - front vowels and back vowels; according to the work of the lips - rounded (labialized), during the formation of which the lips are rounded and protruded, and non-globed (non-labialized), during the articulation of which the lips do not play an active role.
The Russian language has six vowels. Their characteristics can be presented in a table.

Table 1

These features of articulation affect the acoustic properties of vowels. The supraglottic cavities, which act as resonators, enhance certain frequencies called vowel formants. When describing the acoustic characteristics of vowels, information about the frequency of two formants is usually used - the first and second; there is a relationship between the frequency of formants and the nature of articulation: the more closed the vowel, the lower the frequency of the first formant; the more closed the back vowel, the lower the frequency of the second formant; coarsening lowers the frequency of both the first and second formants. The acoustic characteristics are in full accordance with this rule: the lowest frequency of the first formant is characterized by the vowels of the upper rise - i, ы, у; the low vowel a has the highest frequency first formant; The highest second formant is the front vowel and the lowest is the rounded back vowel u, etc.
Unstressed vowels differ from stressed vowels in the degree of expression of their articulatory-acoustic properties; thus, unstressed and less forward, and less closed than stressed; unstressed and less posterior and less closed than stressed. The reduction of unstressed vowels is smaller if the unstressed vowel is at the absolute beginning of the word. Pre-stressed vowels are reduced less than post-stressed vowels. There are certain patterns in the use of vowels. Thus, all six vowels are possible under stress; in unstressed syllables, as a rule, o and e are not used.
The vowel and is used only after soft consonants, ы - only after hard consonants, e is used after hard consonants only in borrowed words or in the position after the consonants sh, zh, ts. Back vowels a, o, u can be found both after hard and soft consonants. Consonants are speech sounds that, when adjacent to vowels, cannot be word-forming. Articulatory consonants are characterized by muscular tension in a certain part of the pronunciation apparatus, but this feature is not obligatory. Acoustically consonants are characterized by the participation of a noise source, however, this feature is not universal, because The group of consonants also includes sonants formed without noise sources. When articulating consonants, the following features are taken into account:
1) active operating body. Depending on which of the active organs actively ensures the formation of a constriction or stop, labial, anterior lingual, midlingual and posterior lingual consonants are distinguished. For front-lingual consonants, the active organ can be:
a) only the front part of the tongue - then they talk about single-focal front-lingual consonants, for example s, z (they are often called whistling - due to their acoustic effect, or dental - due to their passive organ);
b) the back of the tongue - in this case, bifocal anterior lingual consonants are formed with a second posterior focus, for example sh, zh (they are also called sibilants or palatals);
2) the method of formation of consonants. If the active organ forms a complete connection with the passive organ, the so-called. stop consonants, which in turn are divided into plosives and affricates, depending on the method of opening the stop - fast (“instant”), when forming plosives (for example, p, b) or slow, gradual, when forming affricates (ts, h ), in which the closure is followed by a gap phase. If the active organ forms a constriction with the passive one, through which an air stream continuously passes, fricative consonants are formed (for example, f, v). Depending on whether a narrowing (gap) is formed in the middle part of the tongue or whether air passes into the gap formed by the edges of the tongue, middle fricatives are distinguished (for example, s, z and lateral (for example, l). The consonants p and p' are specifically formed, during the articulation of which, peculiar vibrations of the tip of the tongue occur.These consonants are called trembling;
3) the work of the vocal cords. Depending on whether the vocal cords work in the formation of consonants, voiced and voiceless consonants are distinguished;
4) participation of the nasal cavity. If, during the articulation of consonants, the passage of the air stream into the nasal cavity is closed (in this case, the soft palate is raised), the so-called. pure consonants; if the soft palate is lowered and air during the articulation of consonants passes not only into the oral cavity, but also into the nasal cavity, nasal consonants are formed;
5) participation of the middle part of the back of the tongue. If, during the formation of any consonant, the middle part of the back of the tongue rises to the hard palate, soft consonants are formed; hard consonants are articulated without this additional movement. In addition to these actual articulatory properties, when classifying consonants, some of their acoustic characteristics are also taken into account - first of all, the degree of participation of noise components in the sound of consonants. On this basis, consonants are divided into noisy and sonant. There are certain patterns in the use of consonants in the Russian language:
1) at the absolute end of a word or before voiceless consonants it is impossible to use a voiced consonant (say - skaz - fairy tale);
2) before a voiced noisy consonant, you cannot pronounce the voiceless consonant matchmaker, but wedding;
3) before a bifocal consonant, a unifocal consonant is not pronounced (to pity, to embroider).
Sonants, from the point of view of the rules of alternation, form a special group: although articulatory they are voiced consonants, they themselves do not alternate with voiceless consonants at the end of a word and before voiceless ones, and before them it is possible to use both voiceless and voiced noisy consonants (remove, but know; strength, but anger). Labial fricative voiced consonants in and in’, if they are not in front of noisy consonants, also allow both voiceless and voiced consonants in front of them, i.e. functionally close to sonants: own, twist, called, etc.
If in, in’ are in front of noisy consonants, then the use of deaf consonants in front of them is prohibited: the brother ran in, but the brother ran out.
Among labial consonants, stops and fricatives differ not only in the method of formation, but also in the passive active organ: if the stop is formed by two lips, then when articulating fricatives, the passive organ is the upper teeth, therefore the consonants f and f', v and v' are labial- dental
For the back-lingual soft k' and x', the position at the absolute end of the word is unusual.

table 2

Phonetics- a branch of the science of language in which speech sounds, stress, and syllables are studied.

A person can make several hundred different sounds. But in his speech (with the help of which people communicate with each other) he uses a little more than fifty sounds. In the written speech of the Russian language, there are only 31 letters and 2 signs to designate (record) these sounds.

It is necessary to distinguish between the sounds and letters of our speech.

Sound is the smallest sound unit of a syllable.
Letters- these are signs that indicate sounds in writing.

Sound is what we hear and pronounce.
A letter is what we see and write.

When writing a word, there may not be a quantitative relationship between sounds and letters (yama - three letters, and four sounds y-a-m-a). In some words we do not pronounce all the sounds that, when written, are indicated by the corresponding letters (in the word honest, the sound indicated by the letter is not pronounced T) or pronounce another sound (in the word request we pronounce the sound [ Z], and we write WITH) etc. Such inconsistencies are determined by the rules of spelling and spelling.
Letters arranged in a certain order are called the alphabet, or alphabet. Each letter has its own name.

Vowel sounds

Vowels are called sounds, in the formation of which the voice is most involved, and the exhaled air during their formation, without encountering obstacles, comes out easily through the mouth.

There are six vowel sounds - a, o, y, e, s, and , but in writing they are designated by ten letters - a, o, y, e, s, i, e, e, yu i . The last four letters are called compound vowels, since they simultaneously represent two sounds: e-ye, yo-yo, yu-yu, ya-ya - to go - [ j"e]hat, hedgehog- [ j"o]zhik, yula - [ j"y]la, pit-[ j"a]ma. In the Russian language, native Russian words do not begin with the letter y. The letter th is called non-syllabic, or semi-vowel, in transcription it is designated as [ j"].

Consonants

Consonants are called sounds, which are formed with the participation of voice and noise or just noise alone. The air leaving the lungs encounters various obstacles in the oral cavity. There are only 20 consonants. Based on the participation of the voice in their formation, they are divided into voiced and voiceless. There are 10 voiced consonants and 10 voiceless consonants in the Russian language.

Voiced - b, c, d, e, g, h, r, l, n, m
Deaf - p, f, k, t, w, s, x, c, h, sch

The first six voiced and voiceless consonants are paired consonants, since they are formed with the same articulation. Given the known positions of these paired consonants in the layer, they are easily replaced by one another. For example, at the end of words, instead of a voiced one, a voiceless consonant is pronounced, paired with the voiced one.

We pronounce: [ sat], [slap], [drizzling], and we write: garden, bread, frost. Before voiced sounds, a voiced consonant is pronounced instead of a voiceless consonant. We say [ goats"ba], and we write mowing.

Paired consonants are easy to remember, knowing that the voiced ones are the first consonants in the alphabet - b, c, d, d, g, z.

The remaining four voiced ones are r, l, n, m and four deaf - x, c, h, sch are unpaired consonant sounds and are not replaced by one another. Among the consonants, 4 hissing ones stand out - f, h, w, sch .
All consonants except sibilants and ts can be both hard and soft.

Was, ball - the consonants b, l in these words are hard.

Beaten- consonants b, l This word is pronounced softly.

Usually the softness of a consonant sound is easily distinguished by ear.

The softness of the consonant is created by additional articulation - raising the middle part of the tongue to the hard palate. At the end of words, the softness of consonants is heard even more clearly, since it often serves as a means of distinguishing the meaning of a word:
became - steel, was - reality, become - stan, heat - heat.

Consonant ts and sibilant consonants f, w in Russian they are always hard, hissing" h, sch- always soft. After tsь (soft sign) is never written ( finger, well, cucumber), and after hissing f, w, and h,_schь (soft sign) is sometimes used, but not to indicate the softness of the preceding consonant, but to indicate various grammatical forms of words - gender, number, part of speech designation ( night, cut, clouds, watchman).

The softness of consonants (except sibilants) in writing is indicated in two ways:
1) by placing ь after a consonant at the end of a word or in the middle of it between two consonants - steel, day, true story, dictionary, dove, skates, hemp, money, rural, letter;
2) placement of letters after the consonant And, e, e, Yu, I; before these letters all consonants (except for sibilants and " ts") are pronounced softly, although their softness is not heard as clearly as before the soft sign - beat, bureau, uncle, less often, gray.

In some words with two consonants, if the first of them is pronounced softly, after it it is written ь - very much, request, threshing, marriage, etc.
In other words, although the softness of the first consonant is heard, ь (soft sign) is not written - early, mason, tip.
In addition to softening consonants, the soft sign is also used to separate sounds when it stands between a consonant and a vowel (family, blizzard, beat)

Syllable

Syllable called a part of a word that is pronounced with one impulse of exhaled air from the lungs and in which there is only one vowel letter, for example:
Go-lo-va, extreme, mo-ya, city-city, city-ska-ya.

A word can have one syllable or several. Each syllable always has only one vowel, but there may be no consonants at all (mo-ya - the second syllable does not have a consonant), there may be several. Consonants are adjacent to vowels according to the convenience of their pronunciation.

Examples:
My, my-me, casually, seven-me, here and here, sister and sister, stone, public.
If consonants appear on both sides of a vowel, then such a syllable is called closed ( extreme. kao-man. how long). if only on one side, then open ( mo-ya, boo-ma-ga, de-la).
Dividing words into syllables is necessary for mastering the rules of word transfer, determining stress, correct pronunciation of words and spelling.

Accent

Accent is called pronouncing one of the syllables of a word with greater force. This is a sound accent. Usually there is one sound stress in a word, but in complex words there can be two ( cafe e-restaurant A n, bargaining O in-prom s worn).

The stress in Russian can be on any syllable on the first, second, third, etc. Therefore they are called free ( book And" ha, boom A" ha, in front e" lk).

The stress can be either moving or constant.

Permanent the stress is always placed on the same syllable ( longing, longing, longing).

Movable stress moves from one syllable to another ( head, heads, head).

Stress in the Russian language not only performs a pronunciation function (i.e., indicates how the word should be pronounced correctly), but can simultaneously indicate the different semantic meaning of the word ( at or And really e , zas s fall And backfill A t, house A And d O ma).

Phonetic analysis

Phonetic analysis of a word is carried out according to the following plan:

1. Transcribe the word, placing emphasis.
2. Determine the number of syllables, indicate the stress.
3. Show what sound each letter corresponds to. Determine the number of letters and sounds.
4. Write down the letters of the word in a column, next to them are the sounds, indicate their correspondence.
5. Indicate the number of letters and sounds.
6. Characterize sounds according to the following parameters:
vowel: stressed/unstressed;
consonant: voiceless/voiced, hard/soft.

Sample phonetic analysis:
his [ j"i-vo] 2 syllables, second stressed

In phonetic analysis, they show the correspondence of letters and sounds by connecting letters with the sounds they denote (with the exception of the designation of hardness/softness of a consonant by the subsequent vowel letter). Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the letters denoting two sounds, and to the sounds denoted by two letters. Particular attention should be paid to the soft sign, which in some cases indicates the softness of the preceding paired consonant (and in this case, like the preceding consonant letter, it is combined with a consonant sound), and in other cases does not carry a phonetic load, performing a grammatical function.

Students should be able to do not only full (presented above), but also partial phonetic analysis, which is usually carried out as a “background”, additional task to vocabulary dictation, syntactic analysis of sentences, etc.

The following types of exercises may be suggested:
find words in which:
– the number of letters is greater than sounds;
– the number of letters is less than sounds;
– all consonant sounds are voiced (voiceless, hard, soft);
- there is a sound [ b"] (or any other, the detection of which requires the use of certain skills);
– the sound side of which is somehow correlated with their semantics (for example: rustle, whisper, screech, roar, thunder, drum etc.).

At the unified state exam, as tasks for the section “ Phonetics"it is proposed to make a partial phonetic analysis.