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The phonology of Welsh is characterised by a number of sounds that do not occur in English and are typologically rare in European languages, such as the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative and several voiceless sonorants (nasals and liquids), some of which result from consonant mutation. Stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable in polysyllabic words, while the word-final unstressed syllable receives a higher pitch than the stressed syllable. ==Consonants== Welsh has the following consonant phonemes: Symbols in parentheses are either allophones, or found only in loanwords. The sound generally occurs in loanwords, e.g. ''sw'' ('zoo'), although this is usually realised as in northern accents, e.g. . The postalveolar affricates and occur mainly in loanwords, e.g. ''tships'' ('chips') and ''jeli'' ('jelly'), but also in some dialects as developments from and , e.g. from ''diafol'' ('devil'). The voiceless nasals occur mostly word-initially, as a consequence of nasal mutation. Initial (or ) is colloquially realised as in the south, e.g. ''chwech'' ('six') pronounced . The stops are distinguished from by means of aspiration more consistently than by voicing, as are actually devoiced in most contexts. This devoiced nature is recognised in the spelling of as , although is orthographically for historical reasons. The fricatives may also be devoiced in some contexts, but are distinguished from by having a shorter frication length than the latter. There is a tendency in the spoken language not to pronounce these voiced fricatives in certain contexts, e.g. ''nesaf'' ('next') realised as or ''i fyny'' ('up') from ''mynydd'' ('mountain'). Historically, this occurred so often with the voiced uvular fricative that it disappeared entirely from the language. Some speakers realise the voiceless lateral fricative as an voiceless palatal fricative in some or all contexts. The occurrence and distribution of the phoneme varies from area to area. Very few native words are pronounced with by all speakers, e.g. ''siarad'' ('talk'), although it appears in borrowings, e.g. ''siop'' ('shop'). In northern accents, it can occur when precedes or , e.g. ''mi es i'' ('I went'). In some southern dialects it is produced when follows or , e.g. ''mis'' ('month'). The voiceless fricative is realised as uvular except by some southwestern speakers, who produce the sound in the velar region. The phoneme is reportedly pronounced as a voiced uvular fricative by some speakers in Dyfed and Gwynedd, in a pronunciation known as ''tafod tew'' ('thick tongue'). In northern Welsh, the alveolar lateral approximant is consistently velarised or "dark" in all positions, but remains unvelarised or "clear" in the south. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Welsh phonology」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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