The letter "d": hard or soft? This question is often asked by students who need to parse a word according to all the rules of phonetics. You will get the answer a little further.
General information
Before you talk about what the letter "y" (soft or hard) is, you should find out why the letters of the Russian alphabet are generally divided according to such signs.
The fact is that each word has its own sound shell, which consists of individual sounds. It should be noted that the sound of a particular expression is fully correlated with its meaning. Moreover, different words and their forms have completely different sound design. Moreover, the sounds themselves have no meaning. However, they play a crucial role in the Russian language. Indeed, thanks to them, we can easily distinguish between words. Here is an example:
- [home] - [lady’s] - [home’m];
- [m'el] - [m'el '], [volume] - [there], [house] - [volume].
Transcription
Why do we need information about what the letter "y" is (hard or soft)? During phonetic analysis of a word, it is very important to correctly display the transcription that describes its sound. In such a system, it is customary to use the following characters:
[] - this designation is called square brackets. They are necessarily set to indicate transcription.
[´] is an accent. It is put if the word has more than one syllable.
[b '] - a kind of comma is placed next to the consonant letter and indicates its softness.
By the way, during phonetic analysis of the word, the next character is often used - [j]. As a rule, they designate the sound of the letter “th” (sometimes a symbol such as [th] is also used).
Letter "y": consonant or vowel?
As you know, in Russian all sounds are divided into consonants and vowels. They are completely differently perceived and pronounced.
- Vowel sounds are those sounds during the pronunciation of which air easily and freely passes through the mouth without encountering any obstacles in its path. Moreover, they can be pulled, with the help of them you can scream. If you put your hand to the throat, then the work of the ligaments (voice) during the pronunciation of vowels can be quite easily felt. In the Russian language there are 6 stressed vowels, namely: [a], [e], [y], [s], [o] and [and].
- Consonant sounds are those sounds during the pronunciation of which air in its way meets an obstacle, namely a bow or a gap. Their appearance determines the nature of the sounds. As a rule, a gap is formed by the pronunciation of [s], [w], [h] and [g]. In this case, the tip of the tongue approaches the upper or lower teeth. Presented consonants can be pulled (for example, [ff], [w-s-s]). As for the bow, such a barrier is formed due to the closure of the organs of speech. The air, or rather its flow, abruptly overcomes it, so that the sounds are energetic and concise. That is why they are called explosive. By the way, it is impossible to pull them (try it yourself: [n], [b], [t], [d]).
In addition to the above consonants, in Russian there are also the following: [m], [y], [c], [f], [g], [l], [r], [h], [q], [x] . As you can see, there are many more than vowels.
Deaf and loud sounds
By the ratio of voice and noise, consonant sounds can be either voiced or deaf. At the same time, during the pronunciation of voiced, you hear both noise and voice, and the deaf - only noise.
By the way, many consonant sounds form between a pair of deafness and sonority: [k] - [g], [b] - [n], [h] - [c], [d] - [t], [f] - [c] and so forth. In total, there are 11 such pairs in Russian. However, there are sounds that do not have pairs on this basis. These include: [th], [r], [n], [l], [m] - these are unpaired voiced, and [h] and [c] - these are unpaired deaf.
Soft and hard consonants
As you know, consonants differ not only in voicing or, conversely, in deafness, but also in softness and hardness. This property is the second most important sign of sounds.
So, the letter "y": hard or soft? To answer this question, you should consider each symptom individually:
- During the pronunciation of soft consonants, the whole language shifts slightly forward, and its middle part rises slightly.
- During the pronunciation of solid consonants, the whole language is literally pulled back.
It should be especially noted that many consonants form pairs between themselves according to such signs as softness and hardness: [d] - [d '], [n] - [n'], etc. There are 15 such pairs in total. However, there are also sounds that do not have pairs on this basis. What letters of solid consonants are unpaired? These include the following - [w], [g] and [q]. As for unpaired soft, it is [u '], [h'] and [y '].
Letter designation
Now you know the information that the letter "d" is hard or soft. But here a new question arises: "How is the softness of such sounds indicated in the letter?" To do this, completely different methods are used:
- The letters “e”, “y”, “e”, “I” after consonants (not counting “w”, “w”, and “c”) indicate that these consonants are soft. We give an example: uncle - [d'a´d'a], aunt - [t'o´t'a].
- The letter “i” after the consonants (not counting “g”, “w”, and “c”) indicates that these consonants are soft. Here is an example: sweet - [sweetheart], leaf - [l'ist], sweetheart - [n'ytk'i].
- The soft sign (“b”) after the consonants (not counting “g” and “w”) is an indicator of the grammatical form. It also indicates that consonants are soft. Examples example: distance - [gave '], stranded - [m'el'], request - [proz'ba].
As you can see, the softness of consonants in a letter is conveyed not in separate letters, but in their combinations with the vowels "e", "y", "e", "I", as well as a soft sign. That is why, when phonetic parsing of the word, experts recommend paying attention to neighboring characters.
As for the vowel "y", it is always soft. In this regard, it is customary to denote it in transcription as follows: [d ']. That is, a comma symbol, indicating soft sound, must always be set. The same rule obeys [u], [h '].
To summarize
As you can see, there is nothing complicated in correctly phonetic analysis of a word. To do this, you should only know what vowels and consonants are, deaf and voiced, as well as soft and hard. For a better understanding of how to transcribe, we give a few detailed examples.
1. The word "hero". It consists of two syllables, and the second is stressed. Let's do the analysis:
g - [g '] - voiced, consonant and soft.
e - [and] is an unstressed vowel.
p - [p] - voiced, consonant, unpaired and solid.
o - [o] - stressed vowel.
th - [th '] - voiced, consonant, unpaired and soft.
Total: 5 letters and 5 sounds.
2. The word "trees". It consists of three syllables, and the second is stressed. Let's do the analysis:
d - [d '] - voiced, consonant and soft.
e - [and] is an unstressed vowel.
p - [p '] - voiced, consonant, unpaired and soft.
e - [e´] - stressed vowel.
in - [in '] - voiced, consonant and soft
b - [-]
e - [y '] - voiced, consonant, unpaired and soft and [e] - vowel, unstressed;
c - [f] - deaf, consonant, paired and hard.
Total: 8 letters and 8 sounds.