Phonetics as a branch of linguistics. Speech apparatus

Based on the acoustic and articulatory characteristics of sounds.

I. Acoustic classification

Acoustically, speech sounds are divided into sonorant (sonorous) and noisy.

Sonorant - noises are either not present in them at all (vowels), or participate minimally (for example, sonorous consonants m, n, l, r, th);

In noisy ones (and these are only consonants), the timbre is determined by the nature of the noise.

Those. From an acoustic point of view, sounds are divided into vowels, consisting of tone, and consonants, formed by noise or a combination of noise and tone.

II. Articulatory classification

> considers speech sounds from the point of view of their pronunciation, i.e. articulation.

Articulation is the work of the speech organs (lungs; windpipe; larynx; vocal cords located across the larynx; oral cavity, lip cavity, tongue, etc.) aimed at producing speech sounds.

Based on their role in pronouncing sounds, the speech organs are divided into active and passive.

- active organs of speech produce the movements necessary for the formation of sounds, and are thus particularly important for their formation. The active organs of speech include: vocal cords, tongue, lips, soft palate, uvula, posterior dorsum of the pharynx (pharynx) and the entire lower jaw;
- passive organs do not perform independent work during sound production and play an auxiliary role. The passive organs of speech include the teeth, alveoli, hard palate and the entire upper jaw.

The articulation of each sound consists of three parts:

The initial transitional element is an attack (or excursion) of sound, when the organs of the speech apparatus from a calm state are rearranged to pronounce a sound into a working position

The stage of the stationary part is exposure, when the organs have established themselves for a given articulation,

The final transitional element is the indentation (or recursion) when the organs return to an inoperative state.

Vowel classification

Vowel sounds are speech sounds in the formation of which the outgoing stream of air does not encounter obstacles in the oral cavity, and therefore, acoustically, they are characterized by the predominance of a musical tone, or voice.

There are 6 vowel sounds in the Russian language: [a], [o], [e], [i], [s], [u]. They are most clearly heard under stress.

When pronouncing vowels, the tip of the tongue does not play a role; it is usually lowered down, and articulates the back of the tongue with its anterior, posterior, and less often middle parts.

Vowels are classified according to the following main articulatory features:

1) Row, i.e. depending on which part of the tongue is raised during pronunciation.

When raised (1-2-3) parts of the tongue are formed

1. front - front vowels (i, e, b),
2. middle - middle vowels (ы, ъ),
3. back - back vowels (o, u).
2) Lifting, i.e. depending on how high the back of the tongue is raised, forming resonator cavities of varying volumes.

The simplest scheme involves three lifts:

low vowels (a),

medium rise (e, o, b, b),

upper rise (i, s, y).

3) Labialization - the participation of the lips in the articulation of sound.

Depending on whether the articulation of sounds is accompanied by rounding of the lips extended forward or not,

different rounded (labial, labialized): o, u

and unrounded vowels.

4) Nasalization - the presence of a special “nasal” timbre that occurs depending on whether the palatine curtain is lowered, allowing a stream of air to pass simultaneously through the mouth and nose, or not.

Nasal (nasalized) vowels are pronounced with a special “nasal” timbre.

5) Longitude. In a number of languages (English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Czech, Hungarian, Finnish), with the same or similar articulation, vowels form pairs, the members of which are contrasted in duration of pronunciation, i.e. vary

for example, short vowels: [a], [i], [o], [u] and long vowels: [a:], [i:], , .

For the Russian language, the length of vowels does not have a distinctive meaning, however, you can notice that vowels under stress are longer than in an unstressed position.

6) Diphthongization

In many languages, vowels are divided into monophthongs and diphthongs.

Monophthong is an articulatory and acoustically homogeneous vowel.

A diphthong is a complex vowel sound consisting of two sounds pronounced in one syllable. This is a special speech sound in which articulation begins differently than it ends. One diphthong element is always stronger than the other element.

There are two types of diphthongs - descending and ascending.

There are no diphthongs in Russian.

A diphthongoid is a stressed heterogeneous vowel that has at the beginning or end the sound of another vowel, articulatory close to the main, stressed one. There are diphthongoids in the Russian language: house is pronounced “DuoOoM”.

Classification of consonants

Consonants are speech sounds consisting only of noise, or of voice and noise, which are formed in the oral cavity, where the stream of air exhaled from the lungs encounters various obstacles.

There are 37 sound units in the consonant sounds of the Russian language

Consonants vary

2) By the presence or absence of a voice source
4) According to the place of noise generation
5) By timbre color (by hardness-softness).
1) According to the ratio of noise and voice
(Acoustically, consonants differ in their noise-to-voice ratio and in the presence or absence of a vocal source.)

Sonorant sounds are characterized by the fact that in the composition of these sounds the voice predominates over noise. In modern Russian these include: l-l", mm", n-n", r-r", j.

Noisy consonants are characterized by the fact that their acoustic basis is noise, but there are noisy consonants that are formed not only with the help of noise, but with some participation of the voice.

consonant sounds are divided into:

A) Voiced:

sonants ([l-l"], [mm"], ]n-n"], ]rr"], [j]),

noisy voiced ones are formed with the help of noise accompanied by a voice. In modern Russian these include: [b-b"], [v-v"], [g-g"], [d-d"], [z-z"], [zh], [zh? " ].

B) Deaf: noisy deaf are formed with the help of noise, without the participation of the voice. When pronouncing, their vocal cords are not tense or vibrate. In modern Russian these include: [k-k"], [p-p"], [s-s"], [t-t"], [f-f"], [x-x], [ ts], [h"], [sh], [w?"].

Most noisy consonants of the Russian language are contrasted by deafness and voicedness:

[b] - [p], [b"] - [p"], [c] - [f], [v"] - [f"], [d] - [t], [d"] - [ t"], [z] - [s], [z"] - [s"], [g] - [w], [g] - [k], [g"] - [k"]

Unpaired voiced consonants are sonorants.

Unpaired deaf: noisy deaf: [w?"], [ts], [x-x"], [h"].

3) According to the method of noise generation
(According to articulatory characteristics, the initial ones are the method of formation and place of formation).

Method of education: the essence of this method is the nature of overcoming an obstacle.

Based on this feature, 2 groups of consonants are distinguished:

Slotted (otherwise: fricatives, spirants, slotted, cleft, flow-through, blowing) - are formed when certain organs in the mouth, coming together, create a gap in which a stream of air produces friction against the walls of the passage: [f], [v], [s], [z], [w], [z], [sch], [j], [x], as well as glottal aspirates [h].

Closures - are formed when, in the path of a stream of air, the contacting organs create a complete obstacle (bow), which either must be directly overcome, or the air stream should seek to bypass the bow; these consonants are divided into a number of subtypes depending on how the stop is broken.

Stoppers are divided into groups depending on the nature of the obstacle:

explosive. Their bow ends with an explosion (p, b, t, d, k, g);

affricates. Their bow passes into the gap without explosion (ts, h);

closure-passage. When pronouncing them, the organs of speech are completely closed, but are not interrupted by air, since the air passes through the nose or mouth:

nasals, which have a stop without a stop (m, n).

lateral (oral, lateral) (l), in which the bow and fissure are preserved (the side of the tongue is lowered);

trembling (vibrants) (p), with the alternating presence of a bow and a gap.

4) According to the place of noise generation

According to the place of noise generation, i.e. Based on which speech organs take part in pronunciation, sounds are divided into labial and lingual.

A) Labial consonants, in which the barrier is formed using the lips or lower lip and upper teeth. In Russian, labials are divided into labiolabials ([b], [p], [m], [b"], [p"], [m"]) and labiodentals ([v], [v"] , [f], [f"]).

When producing labial sounds, the active organ is the lower lip, and the passive organ is either the upper lip (labial sounds) or the upper teeth (labial sounds).

B) Linguistic consonants. Depending on which part of the tongue creates a barrier, linguals are divided into:

Forelinguals can be dental [t], [d], [s], [z], [ts], [n], [l] and palatodental [h], [sh], [sch], [zh] , [R]

Middle tongue - middle palatal [j];

Rear lingual - posterior palatal [g], [k], [x].

Forelingual according to the position of the tip of the tongue:

dorsal (Latin dorsum - back): the front part of the back of the tongue approaches the upper teeth and the front palate (s, d, c, n);

apical (lat. arekh - top, tip), alveolar: the tip of the tongue approaches the upper teeth and alveoli (l, eng. [d]);

kakuminal (lat. cacumen - apex), or bifocal, during the articulation of which the tip of the tongue is bent upward (w, g, h) to the front palate, and the back is raised to the soft palate, i.e. There are two foci of noise generation.

5) By timbre coloring

The presence of timbre coloring is articulatory associated with the special work of the middle part of the back of the tongue towards the hard palate - palatalization or softening.

Palatalization (Latin palatum - hard palate) is the result of mid-palatal articulation of the tongue, complementing the main articulation of the consonant sound. Sounds formed with such additional articulation are called soft, and sounds formed without it are called hard.

The timbre coloring of consonants allows us to generalize all consonants into 2 large classes according to hardness and softness.

Unpaired on this basis: [j], [h], [sch]; [ts], [f], [w].

Principles of sound classification.

The most fundamental division of sounds is their division into vowels and consonants(this is a linguistic universal). The difference between vowels and consonants is of an articulatory-acoustic nature. Sounds can generally be formed in two ways:

vibration of the vocal cords at the moment a stream of air passes through the larynx - cf. singing; they create the musical tone of sound, or voice; 2)
noise, a non-harmonic sound formed as a result of a stream of air overcoming various obstacles. The relationship between voice and noise is a DP (Differential (distinctive) feature) for vowels and consonants, as well as a DP for further division of consonants. The system of vowel sounds is called vocalism, and the system of consonants is called consonantism.

Vowel sounds:

Vowel sounds are sounds in the formation of which only the voice is involved, without noise. Distinctive features of vowels based on how changes occur in the oral cavity– the resonator is the position of the speech organs, in our case – the lips and tongue, which give the sound different colors. These are speech sounds, the main functional feature of which is their role in syllable formation: a vowel always forms the top of a syllable and is a sonant. A vowel is the sound of speech, when pronounced, the voice, or musical tone, predominates. It is no coincidence that the term “vowel” itself, as well as the corresponding terms in other languages, is associated with the word “voice”

For vowels there is differential features:

Row - the place where the tongue rises. The language is conventionally divided into three sections - the front part of the tongue, the middle part and the back part: according to advancedness, vowels are divided into front row vowels (palatal), front-middle row vowels (central), middle-back row, back row (velar).

Elevation - degree of elevation of the tongue. We conditionally divide it into three degrees - high degree of rise, medium and low. Based on their rise, they distinguish between vowels of the upper (high, narrow, diffuse) and non-upper rise (compact) - medium or low (low, open, wide).

Labialization: participation or non-participation of the lips.). According to the work of the lips, vowels are divided into rounded (labialized, flat) vowels, during the formation of which the lips are rounded and protruded, and unrounded (non-labialized), during the articulation of which the lips do not play an active role.

Nasalization. Depending on whether the velum is lowered, allowing a stream of air to pass simultaneously through the mouth and nose, or not. Nasal (nasalized) vowels, for example in Polish ą,ę

Longitude. In a number of languages (English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Czech, Hungarian, Finnish), with the same or similar articulation, vowels form pairs, the members of which are contrasted in duration of pronunciation, i.e. they differ, for example, short vowels: [a], [i], [⊃], [υ] and long vowels: [a:], [i:], [⊃:], . Note that the sounds of the Russian language: A is long, and O, on the contrary, is short. But these signs in our language do not contrast sounds with each other (there are no oppositions); for the Russian ear, HOUSE and DOOM sound the same, although they are different things (and an Englishman, for example, will distinguish between the long AND in sheap sheep and the short in ship ship, since this is for him there are different words, differing only in the sign of length/brevity).

Diphthongization - In many languages, vowels are divided into monophthongs and diphthongs. A monophthong is an articulatory and acoustically uniform vowel. A diphthong is a complex vowel sound consisting of two sounds pronounced in one syllable.

Consonants:

Consonant sounds (consonantal sounds) are the sound of speech, when pronounced there must be noise and not necessarily tone. Tone is present in voiced consonants and sonants (sonorant consonants). Consonants, unlike vowels, cannot be syllabic.

There are 4 main articulatory features of consonants:

Noisy voiceless words that are pronounced without voice (p, f, t, s, w).

2) Method of articulation. The essence of this method is the nature of overcoming the obstacle.

Stop consonants are formed by a bow that forms a barrier to the air stream. They are divided into three groups:

Explosive. Their bow ends with an explosion (p, b, t, d, k, g);

Africates. Their bow passes into the gap without explosion (ts, h);

Stop nasals, which have a stop without a burst (m, n).

Friction consonants are formed by the friction of a stream of air passing through a passage narrowed by an obstacle. They are also called fricatives (Latin “frico” - true) or spirants (Latin “spiro” - blow): (v, f, s, w, x);
Occlusion-slit, which include the following sonants:

Lateral (l), in which the bow and cleft are preserved (the side of the tongue is lowered);

Trembling (p), with alternating presence of a bow and a cleft.

Active organ. According to the active organ, consonants are divided into three groups:

Labials of two types:

Labiolabial (bilabial) (p, b, m)

Labiodental (v, f)

Lingual consonants, which are divided into front-lingual, middle-lingual and back-lingual;

4. Passive organ. According to the passive organ, i.e. place of articulation, distinguished between dental (dental), alveolar, palatal and velar. When the back of the tongue approaches the hard palate, soft sounds are formed (th, l, th, s, etc., i.e. palatal). Velar sounds (k, g) are formed by bringing the tongue closer to the soft palate, which gives the consonant hardness.

The use of consonants in speech is uneven. Thus, in speech, hard words are found almost three times more often than soft words; sonants, making up only a quarter of the total number of consonants, account for about 40% of all consonant occurrences.

The basis for the classification of vowels is the row and rise of the tongue, as well as the work of the lips.
Articulatory vowels are distributed horizontally along the row, that is, along the part of the tongue that is raised when pronouncing a given sound. There are three rows, and accordingly three types of speech sounds, which are front, middle and back.
Front vowels - and e; middle row - s; back row at o a.
Vertically, vowels differ in their rise - that is, in the degree of elevation of one or another part of the tongue during the formation of a given vowel. There are usually three lifts - upper, middle and lower. In the Russian language, high vowels include u y, middle vowels e o, and low vowels a.

According to the position of the lips, vowels are divided into labial, that is, in the formation of which the lips take part - o y (labialized, rounded) and unglobbed, that is, in the formation of which the lips do not take part - a e and y. Labial vowels are usually back.
Nasalization.
In a number of languages, there are nasal vowels, for example, in French and Polish. Old Church Slavonic also featured nasal vowels, which in Cyrillic were represented by special letters: yus large, or o nasal and yus small, or e nasal. Articulation of nasal vowels occurs when raised? the palatine curtain and the lowered back of the tongue, so that the air stream simultaneously and equally enters the oral and nasal cavity.
Classification of consonant sounds.

The classification of consonants is more complex because there are more consonants in the world's languages than vowels.
Noisy - sonorous. As part of the consonant sounds of any language, two large classes of consonants are distinguished: noisy, that is, sounds in the formation of which noise plays a major role, and sonorant, that is, sounds in the formation of which the main role is played by the voice arising from the vibration of the vocal cords.
The difference between consonants according to the nature of the barrier and the method of overcoming it. Consonants differ depending on what kind of barriers the speech organs form for the air flow coming from the lungs. If the speech organs are closed, then the air stream opens them. As a result, there are stop or plosive consonants. In those cases when the organs of speech are not closed, but only brought closer together, a gap remains between them. An air stream passes into this gap, characteristic air friction is formed, and the consonant sounds arising from this noise are called fricative (from the word gap), or fricative(from the Latin name fricare - “to rub”, as the air seems to rub against the gap in the loosely adjacent organs of speech). In various languages there are also consonant sounds that combine the features of plosives with the features of fricative consonants. Such consonants seem to begin with a plosive element and end with a fricative element. They are called affricates. The Russian affricate ts consists of the plosive t and the fricative s, the affricate h - from the plosive t and the fricative sh. Africates are found in English (Georg), German (Deutsch) and many other languages.
According to the method of formation of the barrier, trembling consonant sounds are also distinguished, during the formation of which the barrier is formed by periodically bringing the active organ of speech closer to the passive one until a very weak stop appears, which is immediately broken by a stream of air emerging from the lungs.
If the first row of differences in the area of consonants is determined by the nature of the obstacles standing in the way of the air flow coming from the lungs, then the second row of differences is associated with activity of active speech organs- tongue and lips. According to this series of differences, consonants are divided into lingual and labial. When the front part of the tongue is involved in lingual articulations, anterior lingual consonants arise. Middle and back lingual consonants are also possible.
The fragmentation continues: among the front-lingual consonants, dental consonants are distinguished, for example, t, and alveolar consonants, for example w). When articulating midlingual consonants, the middle part of the back of the tongue rises and moves closer to the hard palate (for example, the German so-called Ich-Laut in words like ich, Recht). When articulating posterior lingual sounds, the back of the tongue is brought closer together by the soft palate. The back-lingual ones include the Russians k, g, x. In addition to lingual, the same group of consonants also includes labial consonants, which in turn are divided into labiolabial (bilabial, for example, Russian p) or labiodental, for example, v). The difference between labiolabial and labiodental is easy to detect experimentally: to do this, you just need to pronounce the Russian sounds p and v several times in turn.
The third row of differences in the system of consonant sounds is created by the so-called palatalization (from the Latin palatum - hard palate). Palatalization, or softness, is the result of raising the middle and anterior part of the tongue towards the hard palate. Any consonant, except the middle ones, can be palatalized or softened. The presence of palatalized consonants is a striking feature of Russian phonetics.

QUESTION 13) combinatorial and positional changes in sounds in the stream of speech. In the speech stream, the articulation of sounds, depending on various factors, can be subject to changes (modifications), which are divided into positional and combinatorial. If the determining factor of changes is the place of sounds in a word or their position in relation to stress, then such changes are defined as actually positional. If modifications arise when sounds interact with each other during the process of articulation, then they are called combinatorial

By reduction called weakening of vowels in an unstressed position, with changes being quantitative and qualitative. With quantitative reduction vowels lose part of their length and weaken, but do not change their basic characteristics. High-quality reduction observed when unstressed vowels change articulatory features. Unstressed vowels at the end of a word can be reduced to zero, as is found in the words: to > so, or > il; mom > mom (in colloquial speech when addressing); or the word is shortened due to the loss of a syllabic sonorant: rub l b > rup. Such a loss of the final vowel or syllable-forming sonorant is calledApokopa. The actual positional changes include such a phenomenon as prosthesis – the appearance of a consonant sound at the absolute beginning of a word. In French, at the end of a word after the combination of consonants “tr”, the vowel “e” is inserted, so called epithesis : theater theater. One of the main combinatorial modifications is accommodation /from lat. accomodatio – device/ – change in the articulation of consonants under the influence of neighboring vowels and vice versa.assimilation /from lat. assimilatio – likening / – this the appearance of similarities between sounds of the same kind. It happens complete (similarity based on all characteristics) or partial (similarity occurs based on one characteristic), progressive or regressive, contact or distactic. Dissimilation /from lat. dissimilatio – dissimilarity/ – These are changes in which two sounds that are identical or similar in articulation produce different or distant sounds in terms of articulation. diaeresis - the elimination of a sound or syllable due to the convenience of pronunciation; the consonants [d], [t] are often eliminated: forest T girl, train d ka . haplology – omission of one of two identical syllables: banner But setz (instead of banner nono sec), dick O braz (instead of dick oo braz). epenthesis - insertion of sounds in the middle of a word, this phenomenon is more common in children's speech or in common parlance: for the sake of in instead of for the sake of O, compromise cop compromise instead meth edit.
There are also sound process - metathesis (rearrangement), which occurs, for example, when borrowing foreign words: scurvy bullety instead skru bullety from lat. scru pulōsus – precise to the smallest detail; Name Frol comes from the Latin word flos, flor is m flower.

Language is truly a wonderful gift to humanity. This perfect instrument of communication has a complex structure and is a system. Traditionally, when starting to study a language, one turns to phonetics - a branch of the science of language, the subject of which is the sounds of speech, and more specifically, the classification of vowels and

Phonetics

Phonetics is designed to study speech sounds. It occupies a special position, which is determined by the fact that the subject of its study is language units of a material nature. Sounding speech is formed by the human speech organs and air vibrations. The perception of sounding speech occurs through the human hearing organs.

Phonetics deals with the most minimal unit of language - the sound of speech. There are an infinite number of such sounds. After all, everyone pronounces them in their own way. But among this variety we can identify sounds that are pronounced in the same way. The method of formation is the basis for the classification of sounds.

The main thing is the classification of vowels and consonants. Articulation and speech occur or provide speech with melodiousness. Consonants are noise.

Consonant sounds are produced when air overcomes obstacles in its path. They consist of voice and noise or only noise. Different ways of forming and overcoming these obstacles make it possible to distinguish consonant sounds from each other. The classification of vowel/consonant sounds in the Russian language is based on these differences. We will consider its principles further.

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies the articulatory and acoustic features of speech sounds. Articulatory phonetics deals with the study of the anatomical and physiological nature of sound and the mechanisms of its production. Acoustic phonetics studies sound as oscillatory movements carried out by its passage through the vocal cords and oral cavity. The subjects of study of acoustic phonetics are its pitch, strength, longitude and timbre.

Acoustic classification of vowel sounds

Introduction to phonetics usually begins with the study of vowel sounds. Let us not deviate from traditions that are due to their greater significance. They are syllabic. Consonants are adjacent to vowels.

What classification of vowels and consonants will be the subject of our attention for the study of vowel sounds in the first place?

First, let's look at the acoustic features of vowels:

all these sounds are formed using the tone of the voice;
characterized by stress and unstress, that is, they can be weak and strong;
weak vowels are short in sound and do not require straining the vocal cords when pronouncing them;
Strong vowels are distinguished by longer pronunciation and with tension in the vocal cords.

The tone of vowel sounds is not a meaningful characteristic. Can only convey the speaker's emotional state or grammatical meaning. For example, in an interrogative sentence, the vowel in the word that carries the greatest semantic load is pronounced in a higher tone.

Weak and short sounds are called unstressed in Russian. Strong and long are percussive. Stress is unfixed in our language and most often performs a grammatical function: house (singular), houses (plural). Sometimes the stress is meaningful: lock (structure), lock (device for locking a door).

Classification of vowel sounds according to articulatory features. Rounded/unrounded vowels

The articulatory classification of vowel sounds is much broader than the acoustic one. In addition to the voice, they are formed by the lips, tongue and lower jaw. Sound is formed in a certain way and is characterized by the following characteristics:

participation of lips in its formation;
degree of tongue elevation;
horizontal movement of the tongue in the oral cavity.

Vowels can be formed by stretching the lips, then they are called rounded (labialized). If the lips do not participate in the formation of a vowel, then it is called unrounded (non-labialized).

Rounded vowels are formed when the lips are protruded forward and close to each other. The air passes through a narrow space formed by the lips folded into a tube, and the oral resonator lengthens. The degree of rounding varies: the vowel [o] has less, and the vowel [u] is characterized by a greater degree of rounding. The remaining vowels are unrounded, that is, non-labialized.

Vowels by the degree of vertical movement of the tongue, that is, by rise

According to the way the tongue rises to the palate, vowel sounds are:

The lower the rise, the wider the mouth opens and the lower the jaw drops.

Vowels by horizontal tongue movement

Vowels, based on the horizontal movement of the tongue in the mouth, are also divided into three groups:

The front row is the sounds [i], [e]. When they are formed, the front part of the tongue must be raised to the front of the palate.
The middle row is the sounds [a], [s]. When they are formed, the middle part of the tongue rises to the middle part of the palate.
Back row - [y], [o]. When they are formed, the back of the tongue rises towards the back of the palate.

In a generalized form, the classification of vowel sounds is reflected in the vowel triangle. You can see it in the picture below.

Shades of vowel sounds

Division by row and rise does not in any way correspond to the entire richness and variety of vowels. In general, the classification of vowels/consonants in the Russian language is much broader than what is given in school textbooks. Both the first and second may have pronunciation options. It depends on the position in which they stand.

In addition to the sound [and] there is one that is pronounced with a slightly greater openness of the mouth and a lower rise of the tongue than [and]. This sound has a name [and] is open. In transcription it is designated [and e]. Example: forests [l "i e sa"].

The sound [s e] is not so open. For example, in the word “iron”, which is pronounced [zhy e l"e"zny].

In a weak position, before a stressed syllable, instead of the sounds [a], [o], a non-labialized sound is pronounced. According to the position of the tongue, it occupies a place between [a] and [o], for example: grass [tr/\va"], fields [p/\l"a"].

There are also reduced vowels, they are also called weakened sounds. These are [ъ] and [ь]. [ъ] is the sound of the middle row of the middle-low rise. [b] - this sound is the sound of the front row of the middle-low rise. Examples: steam locomotive [pар/\в"с], water [въд" и е no"й]. The weakening of their pronunciation is due to the distance of these vowels from the stress.

The sounds [and е], [ы е], , [ъ], [ь] occur only in a position without stress.

Dependence of vowel sounds on the softness of consonants

Changes in the pronunciation of vowels depending on soft (palatalized) consonants are considered by phonetics. The classification of vowel sounds depending on such proximity can be presented as follows:

The vowels ["a", "e", ["o", ["u] move slightly upward and forward at the beginning of pronunciation.
If these vowels stand between soft consonants, changes in articulation persist throughout the entire pronunciation of the sound: son-in-law [z"a"t", aunt [t"o"t"a], tulle [t"u"l"].

Types of stressed vowels

There are six positions in our language, which are represented by different types of stressed vowels. All of them are presented in the table below.

Types of unstressed vowels

The classification of unstressed vowels depends on the proximity or distance from the stress and preposition or postposition in relation to it:

The vowels [i], [ы], [у], standing in the pre-stressed syllable, are slightly weakened in their articulation, but do not change radically.
If [y] comes after hissing and hard ones before soft ones, then it moves slightly up and forward at the end of the sound, for example in the word zh[y˙]vet.
The sound [y] at the very beginning of the word, standing before soft consonants and after hard back-lingual or hissing ones, also slightly moves up and forward at the end of pronunciation. For example: [u˙]iron, zh[ar˙]rit.
The vowel [у], if it comes after a soft consonant and before a hard consonant, moves up and forward at the beginning of pronunciation. For example: [l’˙u]bove.
If [y] is between soft consonants, it moves up and forward throughout the entire time of pronunciation: [l’˙u˙]beat.
Vowels [a], [o], if they come after back-lingual ones at the beginning of a word, hard and [ts], are pronounced as [ㆄ], this vowel is formed in the middle row, is mid-low in its rise, it is non-labialized.
Vowels [a], [o], [e], if they come after soft consonants, [ch], [j] are pronounced as [ie], which is characterized as a non-labialized vowel, intermediate between [i] and [e], according to in the row of formation it is anterior, in ascent it is middle-upper.
The vowels [e], [o], which come after [sh], [z], are pronounced as [ые], it is the sound of the non-front row, it is no longer ы and not e, such a sound can be heard, for example, in the word " live."
The vowel [a] after [sh], [zh] is pronounced like [ㆄ]. This sound can be heard in the word "sh[ㆄ]lit".
[i], [ы], [у] weaken their articulation in the third and second pre-stressed syllables, but do not change their character of pronunciation.
The vowel [у], if it is in the second and third pre-stressed syllables, before palatalized consonants and behind hard sounds, does not differ from the sound pronounced in the pre-stressed syllable, this also applies to the vowels [ы] and [и].
The vowels [a], [o], [e] in the third and second pre-stressed syllables, at the very beginning of the word, change according to the type of the syllable before the stress - in place of the stressed vowels [a], [o] is pronounced [ㆄ], and in place of [e] it is pronounced [ee].

Changes in vowel stressed sounds in overstressed syllables are reflected in the table below.

Conclusion

To summarize, we can conclude: the classification of vowel sounds is influenced by the position of the tongue. Moving in the mouth, it creates different conditions for the formation of sounds. They are perceived as different vowels.

As already mentioned, vowels are characterized by the fact that their formation involves a musical tone, a voice that is formed in the larynx as a result of rhythmic vibrations of the vocal cords; noise does not participate in the formation of vowels. At the same time, the cavities of the pharynx and mouth play the role of a resonator: when exhaled air passes through them, additional tones (overtones) appear, giving each vowel its own color. Differences in vowels are determined by the different structure of the speech organs - lips, tongue, lower jaw - which changes the volume and nature of the resonating cavities.
The articulatory classification of vowels is based on the fact that they are all characterized by three features: 1) the degree of elevation of the tongue during the formation of vowels, 2) the location of the elevation of the tongue, and 3) roundedness and unroundedness.
According to the degree of elevation of the tongue, i.e., according to the vertical movement of the tongue, according to the degree of its approach to the palate when sound is formed, all vowels are divided into sounds of upper, middle and lower elevations. The vowels of the upper rise are [i], [s], [y], the middle rise - [e], [o], the lower rise - [a].
According to the place where the tongue rises, i.e., according to the horizontal movement of the tongue during the formation of sound, vowels are divided into sounds of the front, middle and back rows. When forming vowels p e-

Place of education

Labial

lingual

Participation

labiolabial

labiodental

anterior-lingual

average
lingual

posterior lingual

noise

t^nocoo education

vote

dental

palatodental

average
palatal

postopalatine

TV.

soft

TV.

soft

TV.

soft

Occlusive

deaf
voiced

P
b

P'
b’

T
d

T'
d'

TO
G

To'
G'

Noisy

Slotted

deaf
voiced

F
IN

f'
V'

With
3

With'
3*

w
and

w*
and"

Africates

deaf
voiced

Slotted

Smychno-pro
running

Nasals

n’

Sonora
new

Lateral
(oral)

l’

Trembling
(vibrants)

At the bottom of the row, the tongue moves forward, the tip of the tongue rests on the lower teeth, and the middle part of the tongue rises slightly. This is how the vowels [i] and [e] are formed. When forming back vowels, the tongue moves back, the tip of the tongue moves away from the lower teeth, and the back of the tongue rises towards the palate. This is how the vowels [y] and [o] are formed. The middle vowels [ы] and [а] occupy a middle position between the front and back vowels.
According to the roundedness of the unrounded vowels, they are divided into labialized (from the Latin labium “lip”) and non-labialized. Labialized vowels are characterized by the fact that when they are formed, the lips are pulled forward and rounded. Labialized Russian vowels include [u] and [o], and the degree of labialization [u] is stronger than the degree of labialization [o]. The remaining vowels of the Russian literary language are non-labialized.
Thus, each vowel can be determined by the combination of its three inherent characteristics. For example, [and] - upper instep, front row, non-labialized; [o] - middle rise, back row, labialized, etc. In the table, the composition of vowels of the Russian literary language with their characteristics can be presented in the following form:
Methodological note. In the current textbook of the Russian language (Ladyzhenskaya T. A., Baranov M. T., Grigoryan L. T., Kulibaba I. I., Trostentsova L. A. / Scientific editor N. M. Shansky. Russian^ language. Textbook for 4th grade. - M., 1986) and in the reference book for students (Baranov M. T., Kostyaeva T. A. Prudnikova A. V. Russian language / Edited by N. M. Shansky. - M., 1986) in sections devoted to phonetics, and in particular the composition of vowels and consonants, one can find some discrepancies with the provisions of this book. These discrepancies relate, firstly, to the absence in the indicated manuals of the sound [zh'] as part of the consonants, and secondly, to the assignment of the consonant [й'] (= in Russian it is currently unstable: in literary pronunciation it is replaced by a long hard consonant (е[ж]у, во[ж]и), and sometimes with the combination [zh'] (do[zh']ik). This explains the absence of [zh'] in the school textbook and in the reference book. that sonorants are closer to voiced than to voiceless ones; in the absence of this category in the school curriculum, sonorant consonants can be classified as voiced.
In addition, in the two books mentioned above, the vowel [s], like la 1, [o], [u], [e], [i], is classified as the basic sounds (i.e., phonemes). This attitude towards [s] can also be found in some scientific works. The question of treating [s] as an allophone of the phoneme (i), and not as an independent phoneme, is discussed in § 87 of this book.