Consonant cluster
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In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups /spl/ and /ts/ are consonant clusters in the word splits. In the education field it is variously called a consonant cluster or a consonant blend.[1][2]
Some linguists[who?] argue that the term can be properly applied only to those consonant clusters that occur within one syllable. Others claim that the concept is more useful when it includes consonant sequences across syllable boundaries. According to the former definition, the longest consonant clusters in the word extra would be /ks/ and /tr/,[3] whereas the latter allows /kstr/, which is phonetically [kst̠ɹ̠̊˔ʷ] in some accents.
Phonotactics
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Each language has an associated set of phonotactic constraints. Languages' phonotactics differ as to what consonant clusters they permit. Many languages are more restrictive than English in terms of consonant clusters, and some forbid consonant clusters entirely.
For example,
Like most
At the other end of the scale,
An example of a true initial cluster is the Polish word wszczniesz (/fʂt͡ʂɲɛʂ/ ("you will initiate"). In the Serbo-Croatian word opskrbljivanje /ɔpskr̩bʎiʋaɲɛ/ ("victualling") the ⟨lj⟩ and ⟨nj⟩ are digraphs representing single consonants: [ʎ] and [ɲ], respectively. In Dutch, clusters of six or even seven consonants are possible (e.g. angstschreeuw ("a scream of fear"), slechtstschrijvend ("writing the worst") and zachtstschrijdend ("treading the most softly")).
Some
There has been a trend to reduce and simplify consonant clusters in
Another element of consonant clusters in Old Chinese was analysed in coda and post-coda position. Some "departing tone" syllables have cognates in the "entering tone" syllables, which feature a -p, -t, -k in Middle Chinese and Southern Chinese varieties. The departing tone was analysed to feature a post-coda sibilant, "s". Clusters of -ps, -ts, -ks, were then formed at the end of syllables. These clusters eventually collapsed into "-ts" or "-s", before disappearing altogether, leaving elements of
Origin
Some consonant clusters originate from the loss of a vowel in between two consonants, usually (but not always) due to vowel reduction caused by lack of stress.[8] This is also the origin of most consonant clusters in English, some of which go back to Proto-Indo-European times. For example, ⟨glow⟩ comes from Proto-Germanic *glo-, which in turn comes from Proto-Indo-European *gʰel-ó, where *gʰel- is a root meaning 'to shine, to be bright' and is also present in ⟨glee⟩, ⟨gleam⟩, and ⟨glade⟩.
Consonant clusters can also originate from assimilation of a consonant with a vowel. In many Slavic languages, the combination mji, mje, mja etc. regularly gave mlji, mlje, mlja etc. Compare Russian zemlyá, which had this change, with Polish ziemia, which lacks the change, both from Proto-Balto-Slavic *źemē.[citation needed] See Proto-Slavic language and History of Proto-Slavic for more information about this change.
Clusters in languages
All languages differ in syllable structure and cluster template. A loanword from Adyghe in the extinct Ubykh language, psta ('to well up'), violates Ubykh's limit of two initial consonants. The English words sphere /ˈsfɪər/ and sphinx /ˈsfɪŋks/, Greek loanwords, violate the rule that two fricatives may not appear adjacently word-initially. Some English words, including thrash, three, throat, and throw, start with the voiceless dental fricative /θ/, the liquid /r/, or the /r/ cluster (/θ/+/r/). This cluster example in Proto-Germanic has a counterpart in which /θ/ was followed by /l/. In early North and West Germanic, the /l/ cluster disappeared. This suggests that clusters are affected as words are loaned to other languages. The examples show that every language has syllable preference[9] based on syllable structure and segment harmony of the language. Other factors that affect clusters when loaned to other languages include speech rate, articulatory factors, and speech perceptivity.[10][11][12][13] Bayley has added that social factors such as age, gender, and geographical locations of speakers can determine clusters when they are loaned crosslinguistically.[14]
English
In
It is important to distinguish clusters and digraphs. Clusters are made of two or more consonant sounds, while a digraph is a group of two consonant letters standing for a single sound. For example, in the word ship, the two letters of the digraph ⟨sh⟩ together represent the single consonant [ʃ]. Conversely, the letter ⟨x⟩ can produce the consonant clusters /ks/ (annex), /gz/ (exist), /kʃ/ (sexual), or /gʒ/ (some pronunciations of "luxury"). It is worth noting that ⟨x⟩ often produces sounds in two different syllables (following the general principle of saturating the subsequent syllable before assigning sounds to the preceding syllable). Also note a combination digraph and cluster as seen in length with two digraphs ⟨ng⟩, ⟨th⟩ representing a cluster of two consonants: /ŋθ/ (although it may be pronounced /ŋkθ/ instead, as ⟨ng⟩ followed by a voiceless consonant in the same syllable often does); lights with a silent digraph ⟨gh⟩ followed by a cluster ⟨t⟩, ⟨s⟩: /ts/; and compound words such as sightscreen /ˈsaɪtskriːn/ or catchphrase /ˈkætʃfreɪz/.
Korean
In Modern Hangul (Korean alphabet) there are 11 consonant-clusters: ㄳ, ㄵ, ㄶ, ㄺ, ㄻ, ㄼ, ㄽ, ㄾ, ㄿ, ㅀ, ㅄ. These come as the final consonant in a syllabic block and refer to consonant letters, not consonant sounds. They instead influence the consonant of the next syllable. However, Middle Korean did have consonant clusters, as evidenced by double consonant clusters in initial position (e.g. ᄓ and ㅯ) as well as triple consonants in both positions (e.g. ㅫ and ᇒ).
Frequency
Not all consonant clusters are distributed equally among the languages of the world. Consonant clusters have a tendency to fall under patterns such as the
Consonant clusters at the ends of syllables are less common but follow the same principles. Clusters are more likely to begin with a liquid, approximant, or nasal and end with a fricative, affricate, or stop, such as in English "world" /wə(ɹ)ld/. Yet again, there are exceptions, such as English "lapse" /læps/.
See also
- English consonant cluster reductions
- Vowel cluster
- Conjunct consonant
- Consonant stacking
Notes
- ^ If the ⟨ew⟩ /juː/ is thought of as consonant plus vowel rather than as a diphthong, three-consonant clusters also occur in words such as skew /ˈskjuː/
References
- ^ "National reading panel, page 2-99" (PDF).
- ^ "Phonics and Word Recognition Instruction in Early Reading Programs, Reading Rockets". 5 August 2013.
- ^ J.C. Wells, Syllabification and allophony
- ^ The extent of consonant clusters in Moroccan Arabic depends on the analysis. Richard Harrell's grammar of the language postulates schwa sounds in many positions that do not occur in other analyses. For example, the word that appears as ktbu "they wrote" in Jeffrey Heath's Ablaut and Ambiguity: Phonology of a Moroccan Arabic Dialect appears as ketbu in Harrell's grammar.
- ]
- ^ Hank F. Nater (1984), The Bella Coola Language, Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service (No. 92) (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada), cited in Bruce Bagemihl (1991), "Syllable Structure in Bella Coola", in the Proceedings of the New England Linguistics Society 21: 16–30
- ^ Beebe, Leslie M. (1975). Occupational Prestige and Consonant Cluster Simplification in Bangkok Thai (PDF). International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Retrieved 23 January 2023.[page needed]
- .
- S2CID 199546117.
- S2CID 170972749.
- S2CID 145289008.
- S2CID 62574684.
- ^ Jun, J. (2011). "Positional effects in consonant clusters". The Blackwell Companion to Phonology. 2: 1103.
- S2CID 145407662.
- ^ Harper, Douglas. "angst". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 17 March 2016.