What is the confluence of consonants in words

"Suddenly he felt sad for a friend, soon he would meet an enemy again ..." But why did the reader of these lines also become sad? Empathy with the lyrical hero? Certainly. But there is something imperceptible at first glance. And if you try to read the sentence out loud? Prepare to shake and blast the tongue. Let's see what a concourse of consonants is. It will be interesting.

Consonants: how much?

"Vdr", "vzgr", "stn", even a strange "sdr" at the junction of words ... Such a number of consonants per square centimeter - an obvious search for the language of the average person. And this phenomenon is called simply and figuratively: the confluence of consonants. What is this?

In order to clearly explain what constitutes a confluence of consonants, we will understand what in any language is called the norm and deviation from it. From the point of view of phonetics, the most convenient scheme for the pronunciation is the alternation of a vowel and a consonant sound. It is no accident that words like "mama", "baba", "bibi" are most quickly and easily picked up by grown-up kids. Such words are convenient for studying and in any foreign language.

And how are they?

Italian language is not in vain considered one of the most melodic. The abundance of vowels and their frequent alternation with consonants makes speech ringing and iridescent, which is only worthy of the famous "amore" or "cinema".

Also within the norm is a cluster of two consonants. Many Russian words, for example, "friend", "enemy", "ringing", "shout", are included in this group. The German language is known for its diverse combinations of consonants. "Schmetterling", "Duft", "Schritt" - these words are expressive in their own way, beautiful in their clarity and also easily remembered.

But the Serbian and Czech languages were less fortunate. "Chrly vrh", which means only "black top", sounds infernally. And for the sinister "trdlo" hides an appetizing bun. And this is not an exception.

Records on hard-to-pronounce words beat the Georgian language. What exactly is "gvptrskvnis" - nine consecutive and separately spoken consonants.
In English there is the word latchstring (rope from the latch) - 6 consonants in a row. It is worth noting that the sounds in this combination are 5 [le txtr ing]. We hasten to reassure all those who study English about the fact that such a confluence of consonants is a rarity. The maximum here is 4 consonants in the plural forms: attempts, bursts, and in ordinal numerals sixth, twelfth.

Often words with three consonants and for the Russian language. "Sigh," "cry," "adult," "strive," "revenge" ... You can easily see that such noisy trio are found (and here is another example!) At the beginning of the word. This option is even more or less acceptable. But the short forms of some adjectives can cause a smile. Round, good, dim, stale - can you say about the person "He is stale" and not smile? Even if this characteristic is true. Why does this happen?

Where consonants merge

The whole point is where the concurrence of consonants occurs: at the end of the word, in its middle or at the beginning. As a rule, the beginning of any word is pronounced with a greater voice and speed. This facilitates the articulation of several consonants in a row, they seem to fly through the air. Hence the hidden energy of the word "explosion" - the confluence of consonants here describes this phenomenon as well as possible. Similar in effect to the word "takeoff", "shot." Very often such words mean a sharp, impetuous and short-term action. Agree that this confluence of consonants is even justified. And beautiful.

Words with a concourse of consonants in the end, on the contrary, sound heavy. Cedar, beaver, fact ... However, it is worth becoming a vowel sound at the end of the word - the concurrence of consonants is almost lost: "tundra". The same thing happens with plural forms: "cedars", "facts". But the genitive plural forms of some nouns may well slow the rate of speech: "feelings", "actions", "sets".

The meeting place can be changed

Speaking of the "meeting place", one can not fail to mention the random confluence of consonants at the junction of words or morphemes . A classic example of a bad poem for children: "The Pups is furious." With such a crowd of deaf consonants, not only the pups will get mad! Whistling [s] and [s] completely dissolve in anything not guilty [in] between them, erase the boundary of words and with rapid utterance make the phrase incomprehensible.

Counterstrategy, filterpress, burgomastery, denationalization ... These monsters in a literal form are just words that are not very lucky with prefixes and suffixes. Often, the guilt of foreign origin or prefix (counter-), or the root (burgomaster), or both roots (filter and press). It is worth rejoicing that such words, as a rule, have a narrow specialization.

Falling out of the cage

Hello! To say this word is so easy. And to write - not so. Three consonants in the beginning and four in the middle make one of the friendliest words impregnable in appearance. But how did the human language do? Very simple. I threw out the unintelligible sound from the pronunciation [in]. Some go even further, reducing to "good", "fight" or "gift." The point is, if the word is very often used in everyday speech, its pronunciation should not make conversation difficult. "Sun", "late", "heart", "godfather" in oral speech safely lost uncomfortable consonants, unnecessarily straining the language. But look at the self-root "sunny", "late", "cordial", "christening". Very similar, but already different words. The consonants in them are divided into two parts by vowels, and each consonant sound gets its portion of power.

Openness does not happen much?

We have already figured out that many consonants in a row are bad and inconvenient for a smooth human speech. But what about the long lines of vowels?

Audio equipment, hydro-aeroionization, radioactivity ... It's easy to see that the combinations of vowels are found at the junction of the foundations in compound words. As a rule, these are complex scientific terms that we seldom use in everyday life. If you try to read such words aloud, you can hear that they involuntarily fall into two or three shorter (according to the number of bases). Yet it is easier to handle vowels because of the greater voice participation in their utterance.

Tongue Twisters

It would seem that the confluence of consonants is an ideal phenomenon for tongue twisters. That's where all the smashes break the tongues! Let's analyze the most popular tongue twisters in Russian.

• Sasha walked along the highway and sucked dry.
• Grass in the yard, firewood on the grass. Do not cut firewood on the grass of the yard.
• On the rocks, we lazily caught the burbot and changed the burbot we to you on the line. About love you did not beg me, cursed me, into the fogs of Liman.

Very variegated picture turned out. All known tongue twisters, it turns out, do not contain a single shattering confluence of consonants! The maximum here is two consonant consecutive [dr], [tp], [wk]. But these combinations are widespread and do not cause difficulties.

Basically tongue twisters are aimed at honing simple similar syllables "consonant-vowel". Thus, the tongue twister improves the pace and fluency of speech simultaneously.

There are a few tongue twisters with a concoction of consonants. However, they are not so well known.

• Wipe the portrait. Clean the portrait with awe.
• To keep a vehicle more expensive than spending money on transport.
• The route was routed and was not routed.

From such verbal exercises, the speech will not become more elegant, and therefore it is better to still use the old tried fruits of folk art.

Summarize

The succession of consonants is a phenomenon existing in many languages of the world. For some languages, it is the norm, in others it is unacceptable. Very often the abundance of consonants makes speech difficult and worsens understanding (especially at the junction of words). Nevertheless, some words express this phenomenon expressiveness, especially if used at the beginning of the lexeme. Shake and explosion for the tongue are sometimes very useful.