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In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and , pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and and , which have air flowing through the nose (nasals). Contrasting with consonants are vowels. Since the number of possible sounds in all of the world's languages is much greater than the number of letters in any one alphabet, linguists have devised systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to assign a unique and unambiguous symbol to each attested consonant. In fact, the English alphabet has fewer consonant letters than English has consonant sounds, so digraphs like "ch", "sh", "th", and "zh" are used to extend the alphabet, and some letters and digraphs represent more than one consonant. For example, the sound spelled "th" in "this" is a different consonant than the "th" sound in "thin". (In the IPA they are transcribed and , respectively.) ==Terminology== The word ''consonant'' comes from Latin oblique stem ''cōnsonant-,'' from ''cōnsonāns (littera)'' "sounding-together (letter)", a calque of Greek σύμφωνον ''sýmphōnon'' (plural ''sýmphōna'').〔Robert K. Barnhart, ''ed.'', ''Chambers Dictionary of Etymology'', Previously published as ''The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology'', originally ©1988 The H.W. Wilson Company; Edinburgh, reprinted 2001: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd., p. 210.〕 Dionysius Thrax calls consonants ''sýmphōna'' "pronounced with" because they can only be pronounced with a vowel.〔Dionysius Thrax. τέχνη γραμματική (Art of Grammar), (ς´ περὶ στοιχείου (6. On the Sound) ): :σύμφονα δὲ τὰ λοιπὰ ἑπτακαίδεκα· β γ δ ζ θ κ λ μ ν ξ π ρ σ τ φ χ ψ. σύμφοναι δὲ +λέγονται+, ὅτι αὐτὰ μὲν καθ᾽ ἑαυτὰ φωνὴν οὐκ ἔχει, συντασσόμενα δὲ μετὰ τῶν φωνηέντων φωνὴν ἀποτελεῖ. :The remaining seventeen are consonants: b, g, d, z, th, k, l, m, n, x, p, r, s, t, ph, ch, ps. They are called consonants because they do not have a sound on their own, but, when arranged with vowels, they produce a sound.〕 He divides them into two subcategories: ''hēmíphōna'', semivowels ("half-pronounced"), which correspond to continuants, not semivowels,〔Dionysius Thrax: :τούτων ἡμίφωνα μέν ἐστιν ὀκτώ· ζ ξ ψ λ μ ν ρ σ. ἡμίφωνα δὲ λέγεται, ὅτι παρ᾽ ὅσον ἧττον τῶν φωνηέντων εὔφωνα καθέστηκεν ἔν τε τοῖς μυγμοῖς καὶ σιγμοῖς. :Of these, eight are semivowels (): z, x, ps, l, m, n, r, s. They are called semivowels, because, though a little weaker than the vowels, they are still harmonious () in their moaning and hissing.〕 and ''áphōna'', mute or silent consonants ("unvoiced"), which correspond to stops, not voiceless consonants.〔Dionysius Thrax: :ἄφωνα δέ ἐστιν ἐννέα· β γ δ κ π τ θ φ χ. ἄφωνα δὲ λέγεται, ὅτι μᾶλλον τῶν ἄλλων ἐστὶν κακόφωνα, ὥσπερ ἄφωνον λέγομεν τὸν τραγωιδὸν τὸν κακόφωνον. :Nine are silent (): b, g, d, k, p, t, th, ph, ch. They are called silent, because, more than the others, they are discordant (), just as we call the ill-sounding tragedy "silent".〕 This description does not apply to some human languages, such as the Salishan languages, in which stops sometimes occur without vowels (see Nuxálk), and the modern conception of consonant does not require co-occurrence with vowels. 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「consonant」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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