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Consonants

In this paragraph about consonants, I would like to begin with the definition of a consonant.

Consonant – a sound that is articulated with complete or particular closure of the vocal tract.

Likewise vowels, consonants have three characteristics that determine their position in your articulation. These three parameters are:

    • Place, where the consonant is pronounced in the mouth
    • Manner, how the consonant is pronounced
    • Sonority, whether you use your vocal cords or not

Place of the consonant can be quite different. Here are possible types: Bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, postalveolar, palato-alveolar, retroflex, alveolo-palatal, palatal, labio-velar, velar. There are more types, but they do not exist in Novoslovnica.

Manner is the way how you pronounce the sound. There are also different manners, that are used in Novoslovnica. They are: nasal, stop, affricate (sibilant), sibilant fricative, non-sibilant fricative, approximant, trill and lateral approximant.

Sonority is the boolean attribute of pronunciation. You can either use your voice with the sound you pronounce or not. Notice that vowels cannot be pronounced without the use of your voice.

Combining these three parameters, we get the unique consonant that we want to pronounce. I cannot draw  a 3-dimensional table, because there are three parameters on input, so we will combine information into 2-dimensional space as in paragraph about vowels. So, look at table 1.5 and see the different consonants that are used in Novoslovnica.

 Nasal Stop Affricate Fricative Approximant Trill 
Bilabialmbp
Labio-dentalvfʋʋ̥
Dentalndtѳ
Alveolard͡zt͡szslr
Palato-alveolard͡ʒt͡ʃʒʃ
Retroflexɖ͡ʐʈ͡ʂʐʂ
Alveolo-palatald͡ʑt͡ɕʑɕj
Palatalɲɟcʝʎ
Labio-palatalɥ
Labio-velarw
Velarŋgkɣx
Glotalɦh

The left and the right columns in the cells show the sonority of the consonant. The left one shows that the sound is voiced, while the right one is for voiceless sounds.

Blue cells in the table show that sounds in it can be used both in voiced and voiceless forms as allophones.

Novoslovnica has 51 consonants, 21 of them are voiceless and 30 are voiced.

However, not all of these consonants are language phonemes. So, let’s talk about the allophones among these sounds.

Main consonantsAllophones
d͡ʑd͡ʒ
t͡ɕt͡ʃ
ʒʑ
ʃɕ
l
r (voiced)r (voiceless)
n (alveolar)n (palato-alveolar), n (dental)
r̥ (voiced)r̥ (voiceless)
vʋ
fʋ̥
ɦɣ
xh

Likewise vowels, consonants can be compared with each other in terms of softness/hardness. The common rule is that every consonant has its soft or hard partner.

Exception: Three sounds are exceptions to this rule.

  • The sound θ has no pair, because its pair ð has never been used in Slavic languages.
  • Also nasal velar consonant ŋ has no soft pair.
  • And vice versa, the sound j is soft and has no hard pair.

Remember this exception, let’s look at the table below to get acquainted with pairs of consonants.

Hard consonantsSoft consonants
bbj
vvj
ggj
ɦɦj
dɟ
ɖ͡ʐd͡ʑ
d͡zd͡zj
ʐʒ
zzj
kkj
lʎ
mmj
nɲ
ppj
rrj
rj
ssj
tc
ffj
xxj
t͡st͡sj
ʈ͡ʂt͡ɕ
ʂʃ
wɥ

As you see, every consonant from table above has its own soft pair. The soft consonant is usually written as a hard consonant with the sound j attached, but some of them are provided as unique sounds by IPA, because in some languages they can be phonemes.