§6. Hard and soft consonants
Consonants differ not only in deafness and voicedness, but also in hardness and softness. Hardness softness is the second most important feature of consonants in the Russian language.
Soft consonants differ from hard consonants in the special position of the tongue. When pronouncing hard words, the entire body of the tongue is pulled back, and when pronouncing soft words, it is moved forward, and the middle part of the tongue is raised. Compare: [m] – [m'], [z] – [z']. Voiced soft ones sound higher than hard ones.
Many Russian consonants form pairs based on hardness and softness : [b] - [b'], [v] - [v'] and others. There are 15 such pairs.
Hardness-softness pairs: [b] and [b'], [m] and [m'], [p] and [p'], [v] and [v'], [f] and [f'] , [z] and [z'], [s] and [s'], [d] and [d'], [t] and [t'], [n] and [n'], [l] and [l'], [p] and [p'], [k] and [k'], [g] and [g'], [x] and [x'].
But there are sounds that do not have a pair on the basis of hardness and softness. For example, the sounds [zh], [sh], [ts] do not have a soft pair, but [y'] and [h'] do not have a hard pair.
Unpaired in hardness-softness
Solid unpaired : [f], [w], [c].
Soft unpaired : [th'], [h'], [w':].
§5. Voiced and voiceless consonants
According to the ratio of noise and voice, consonants are divided into voiced and voiceless . When pronouncing voiced consonants, both voice and noise are heard, while voiceless consonants hear only noise. Deaf words cannot be spoken loudly. They cannot be shouted.
Let's compare the words: house and cat. Each word has 1 vowel sound and 2 consonants. The vowels are the same, but the consonants are different: [d] and [m] are voiced, and [k] and [t] are voiceless. Voicedness-voicelessness is the most important feature of consonants in the Russian language.
Many Russian consonants form pairs based on voicedness-voicelessness: [b] - [p], [z] - [c] and others. There are 11 such pairs.
Voiceless-voiced pairs: [p] and [b], [p'] and [b'], [f] and [v], [f'] and [v'], [k] and [g], [k'] and [g'], [t] and [d], [t'] and [d'], [w] and [g], [s] and [z], [s'] and [ z'].
But there are sounds that do not have a pair on the basis of voicedness - deafness. For example, the sounds [r], [l], [n], [m], [y'] do not have a voiceless pair, but [ts] and [ch'] do not have a voiced pair.
Unpaired according to deafness-voicing
Voiced unpaired: [р], [л], [н], [м], [й'], [р'], [л'], [н'], [м']. They are also called sonorous .
What does this term mean? This is a group of consonants (9 in total) that have peculiarities of pronunciation: when they are pronounced, obstacles also arise in the oral cavity, but such that the air stream passing through the obstacle creates only a slight noise; air passes freely through an opening in the nasal or oral cavity. Sonorants are pronounced using the voice with the addition of slight noise. Many teachers do not use this term, but everyone should know that these sounds are unpaired voiced sounds.
Sonorants have two important features:
1) they are not deafened, like paired voiced consonants, before voiceless consonants and at the end of a word;
2) before them there is no voicing of paired deaf consonants (i.e. the position in front of them is strong in deafness-voicing, just like before vowels). See below for more information on positional changes.
Voiceless unpaired: [ts], [h'], [w':], [x], [x'].
How can it be easier to remember lists of voiced and voiceless consonants?
The following phrases will help you remember lists of voiced and voiceless consonants:
Oh, we didn’t forget each other! (Here only voiced consonants)
Foka, do you want to eat some soup? (Here only voiceless consonants)
True, these phrases do not include pairs of hardness and softness. But usually people can easily figure out that not only hard [z] is voiced, but also soft [z'], not only [b], but also [b'], etc.
§7. Indication of softness of consonants in writing
Let's take a break from pure phonetics. Let's consider a practically important question: how is the softness of consonants indicated in writing?
There are 36 consonant sounds in the Russian language, including 15 hard-soft pairs, 3 unpaired hard and 3 unpaired soft consonants. There are only 21 consonants. How can 21 letters represent 36 sounds?
Various methods are used for this:
- iotized letters e, e, yu, i after consonants, except sh, zh and c, unpaired in hardness-softness, indicate that these consonants are soft, for example: aunt - [t'o´t'a], uncle - [Yes Yes];
- letter and after consonants, except sh, zh and c. The consonants denoted by the letters sh, zh and c are unpaired hard. Examples of words with the vowel letter and: ni´tki - [n'i´tk'i], leaf - [l'ist], cute - [m'i´lyy'];
- the letter ь, after consonants, except sh, zh, after which the soft sign is an indicator of the grammatical form. Examples of words with a soft sign: request - [proz'ba], stranded - [m'el'], distance - [dal'].
Thus, the softness of consonants in writing is conveyed not by special letters, but by combinations of consonant letters with the letters i, e, e, yu, i and ь. Therefore, when parsing, I advise you to pay special attention to adjacent letters after the consonants.
Discussing the problem of interpretation
School textbooks say that [w] and [w'] are unpaired in hardness and softness. How so? We hear that the sound [w'] is a soft analogue of the sound [w]. When I was studying at school myself, I couldn’t understand why? Then my son went to school. He had the same question. It appears in all children who approach learning thoughtfully.
Confusion arises because school textbooks do not take into account that the sound [w'] is also long, but the hard sound [sh] is not. Pairs are sounds that differ in only one attribute. And [w] and [w'] - two. Therefore [w] and [w'] are not pairs.
For adults and high school students.
In order to maintain correctness, it is necessary to change the school tradition of transcribing the sound [w']. It seems that it is easier for the guys to use one more additional sign than to face an illogical, unclear and misleading statement. It's simple. So that generation after generation does not rack their brains, it is necessary to finally show that a soft hissing sound is long.
For this purpose, in linguistic practice there are two icons:
1) superscript above the sound; 2) colon.
Using a superscript is inconvenient because it is not provided by the set of characters that can be used in computer typing. This means that the following possibilities remain: using a colon [w':] or a grapheme denoting the letter [w']. It seems to me that the first option is preferable. Firstly, children often mix sounds and letters at first. The use of a letter in transcription will create the basis for such confusion and provoke an error. Secondly, children are now starting to learn foreign languages early. And the [:] symbol, when used to indicate the length of a sound, is already familiar to them. Thirdly, transcription indicating longitude with a colon [:] will perfectly convey the features of the sound. [sh':] - soft and long, both features that make up its difference from the sound [sh] are presented clearly, simply and unambiguously.
What advice can you give to children who are now studying using generally accepted textbooks? You need to understand, comprehend, and then remember that in fact the sounds [w] and [w':] do not form a pair in terms of hardness and softness. And I advise you to transcribe them the way your teacher requires.
