Phonetics of the Russian language: "d" - consonant or vowel sound?

The phonetic structure of the Russian language is not easy to call. Like in any other language, there are vowels and consonants in Russian. But to determine which one is intuitively not always possible: for example, what is the sound of the "i" - consonant or vowel? We will deal with this in more detail below.

Letters and Sounds

When children begin to study letters and sounds in class 1, they sometimes confuse these concepts. However, the letter and sound are completely different phonetic terms. The letter is a graphic icon. And sound is what we hear and say. Behind each letter fixed certain sounds with which they correspond in most cases, but there is no direct similarity between them.

Transcription is a way of transmitting sounds that we hear in a letter. With its help, it is easy to trace the difference between a letter and a sound. For example, there are letters with no fixed sounds: a solid sign (b) and a soft sign (b). Their function is to transmit the hardness or softness of the sound:

• Mol - [mol] or mol - [mol '] .

In addition, there are letters that can transmit different sounds: we write "MILOKO", but we say [mALAKO]. Also, the same letter can transmit several sounds:

• My [may'o] .

In view of this, it is not entirely correct to talk about consonant and vowel letters and sounds.

What are the sounds?

The most extensive classification of sounds in the Russian language, which is based on the mechanism of their formation by voice, is a division into consonants and vowels. This is the first thing that can be needed in school at the lesson. Sounds and letters, as we have already explained, are different phenomena. Therefore, we must remember that it is wrong to say "consonants and vowels". Sound - that's what can have such a characteristic.

Any sound is produced as a result of the operation of the speech apparatus. However, this can happen in different ways. Thus, vowel sounds are formed, first of all, by vocal cords. They are "musical" and have a tone. Consonant sounds are also formed with the participation of teeth and tongue, which in different positions form different in their quality obstacles to the flow of air, as a result of which consonant sounds are characterized by the presence of noise.

To understand is the sound of a vowel or a consonant, one can perform a simple test: if the sound can be sung extensively using only the voice, then it is a vowel. If this does not work out, then it means that the sound is consonant.

There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet. For simplicity of notation, they have a conditional division into vowels and consonants (21 consonants, 10 vowels and 2 without designation - "b" and "b"), but many phoneticists, for reasons stated above, consider this to be incorrect. Sounds in Russian 46. Among them are 37 consonants and 6 vowels.

Consonant sounds of the Russian language

Why is it that consonant sounds in Russian are more than letters? Such a preponderance is obtained, first of all, because one letter can denote both a soft sound and a solid one:

• B - [b], [b '] or B - [c], [c'] , etc.

Vowel sounds of the Russian language

For those who have forgotten the school curriculum, it is no less surprising why such a difference is between the number of vowels and letters. Here the reason is that some letters correspond at once with two sounds. For example, the letter "e" transmits two sounds at once and when transcribed by the transcription it will look like [i'o].

History of the letter "i"

Now that we have thoroughly acquainted ourselves with the peculiarities of the phonetics of the Russian language, we can directly go over to the question of what sound is transmitted by the "i" - the consonant or the vowel.

This question can confound even the experienced person in the Russian language. The fact is that the letter "d" is quite an interesting story, and the characteristics of the sound [d '] changed over time even in linguistics.

Thus, the letter "i" appeared in the Russian alphabet only after spelling reform in 1918. In most cases, in those words where it is now, the letter "i" absent now in the alphabet was used.

Scientists have long been at a loss to determine whether a vowel or a consonant sound [d ']. For a long time in many dictionaries it was defined as a vowel. The reason for this was his story. The fact is that the letter "i" could be used both in words where now we write "and" (for example, in the word "world" instead of "and"), and in words where now we write "i" (for example , In the word "major" instead of "d"). And at the stage of development of phonetics, these sounds were not differentiated.

All the same, "d" is a consonant or vowel sound?

Since the prerevolutionary days, phonetic science has moved forward, and new criteria for the classification of sounds have appeared. As it was told above, the peculiarity of consonant sound is that it has noises in its sound, and its language and teeth actively participate in its formation.

To understand what kind of sound is "y" - a vowel or a consonant, - try to pull it. If you try to sing it, without trying to replace it with [and], you can be sure that nothing will turn out.

Thus, according to modern standards, [d] is a uniquely consonant sound. He is also unpaired (he does not have hard and soft variations) and sonorous (a sonorous sound is a sound in the formation of which the voice participates, and when he utters it one can feel the vibration if you put your hand to your throat).

It can be confusing that some vowel letters during transcription can be related to two sounds at once, one of which [d ']. For example, "e" [d], "yu" [dv], "I" [d]. This should not be embarrassing. Such letters are called iotated and transmit at once two sounds - a consonant and a vowel. The letters "e", "e", "yu" and "I" are almost always correlated with iotated sounds. Such sounds often appear in the following positions: at the beginning of a word, after another vowel sound, after a soft and hard sign. Examples of iotized letters in words:

• Application [zay'afka];
• Raccoon [y'enot];
• Christmas tree [dol'ka];
• Shelter [priyut];
• Blizzard .

Finally it is worth mentioning that the sound "and short" does not exist, since this is the name of the letter. The sound is called "i", and there is also another name - "yot".