Letter "h": hard or soft? Phonetic Word Analysis

Letter "h": hard or soft? This question is often asked by students who need to understand the word according to all the rules of phonetics. The answer to it you will get a little further.

General information

Before you tell us about the letter "d" (soft or hard), you should find out why the letters of the Russian alphabet are generally divided according to such signs.

The fact is that every word has its own sound envelope, which consists of individual sounds. It should be noted that the sound of an expression is fully correlated with its meaning. At the same time different words and their forms have completely different sound design. And the sounds themselves do not matter. However, they play a crucial role in the Russian language. After all, thanks to them, we can easily distinguish words. Let's give an example:

• [House] - [lady] - [do'ma];
• [M'al] - [m'al '], [tom] - [there], [house] - [volume].

Transcription

Why do we need information about what is the letter "i" (hard or soft)? During the phonetic analysis of the 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 symbols:

[] - this designation is called square brackets. They are necessarily put to denote 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 the phonetic analysis words are often used and the next character - [j]. As a rule, they denote the sound of the letter "d" (sometimes use a symbol such as [d]).

Letter "i": 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 the air passes easily and freely 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 palm to your throat, then the work of the ligaments (voice) during the pronunciation of vowels can be easily felt. In Russian there are 6 stressed vowels, namely: [a], [e], [y], [s], [o] and [and].
• Consonant sounds are those sounds, during the pronunciation of which the air on its way meets an obstacle, namely a bow or a slot. Their form determines the nature of the sounds. As a rule, a gap is formed when [c], [w], [s] and [x] are pronounced. In this case, the tip of the tongue approaches the upper or lower teeth. The presented consonants can be pulled (for example, [ж-ж-ж], [з-з-з]). As for the link, this obstacle is formed due to the closing of the organs of speech. Air, or rather its flow, overcomes it sharply, so that the sounds are energetic and concise. That's why they are called explosive. By the way, you can not pull them (try it yourself: [n], [б], [т], [д]).

In addition to the aforementioned consonants, there are also the following in Russian: [m], [d], [c], [ph], [r], [l], [p], [h], [q], [x] . As you can see, there are many more than vowels.

Deaf and sonorous sounds

By the ratio of voice and noise, consonant sounds can be both ringing and deaf. At the same time, during the pronunciation of sonorous voices, noise and voice are heard, and the deaf are only noise.

By the way, many consonant sounds form between the pairs in the deafness and voicing: [k] - [r], [b] - [n], [s] - [c], [d] - [t], [f] - [C], etc. In total there are 11 such pairs in Russian. However, there are sounds that do not have pairs on this basis. They are: [d], [p], [n], [l], [m] are unpaired voiced, and [h] and [q] are unpaired deaf.

Soft and firm consonants

As you know, consonant letters differ not only in voicing or, conversely, deafness, but also in softness and hardness. This property is the second most important sign of sounds.

So, the letter "h": hard or soft? To answer this question, you should consider each feature separately:

• During the pronunciation of soft consonants, the entire tongue moves slightly forward, and its middle part slightly lifts.
• During the pronunciation of solid consonants, the entire language is literally drawn back.

It should be specially noted that many consonant letters form pairs with such features as softness and hardness: [q] - [d '], [n] - [n'], etc. There are in total 15 such pairs. However, there are also such sounds that do not have pairs on this basis. Which letters of solid consonant sounds are unpaired? The following can be attributed to them: [w], [x] and [q]. As for the unpaired soft, it is [ni '], [c'] and [d '].

Letter designation

Now you know the information about whether the letter "y" 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", "yu", "e", "I" after the consonants (not including "w", "w", and "q") indicate that these consonants are soft. Let us give an example: dya'dya - [d'a'd'a], aunt - [t'o't'a].
• The letter "and", which stands after the consonants (not counting "ж", "ш", and "ц") indicates that these consonants are soft. Let us give an example: mi'ly - [m'y'ly], leaf - [l'ist], nitki - [n'i'tk'i].
• The soft sign ("ь") after the consonants (not including "ж" and "ш") is an indicator of the grammatical form. It also indicates that the consonant letters are soft. Examples are an example: distance - [gave '], stranded - [m'al'], request - [prozba].

As you can see, the softness of consonant sounds on a letter is not transmitted in separate letters, but in their combinations with vowels "e", "yu", "e", "I", and a soft sign. That is why, when phonetic analysis of a word, experts recommend turning their attention to neighboring symbols.

As for the vowel "d", it is always soft. In connection with this, in transcription it is customary to designate it as follows: [d ']. That is, the symbol of a comma, indicating softness of sound, must always be put. The same rule is also obeyed by [nu '], [h'].

Let's sum up the results

As you can see, there is nothing complicated in making a phonetic analysis of a word correctly. To do this, you just need to know what vowels and consonant letters are, deaf and sonorous, and also soft and hard. For a better understanding of how to arrange transcription, we give a few detailed examples.

1. The word "hero". It consists of two syllables, the second being the percussion. Let's do the analysis:

R - [r '] - sonorous, consonant and mild.

E - [and] - unstressed vowel.

P - [p] - sonorous, consonant, unpaired and hard.

O - [o] - the stressed vowel.

D - [d '] - sonorous, consonant, unpaired and mild.

Total: 5 letters and 5 sounds.

2. The word "trees". It consists of three syllables, the second being the percussion. Let's do the analysis:

D - [d '] - sonorous, consonant and mild.

E - [and] - unstressed vowel.

P - [p '] - sonorous, consonant, unpaired and mild.

E - [e'] - stressed vowel.

In - [c '] - sonorous, consonant and soft

Ь - [-]

E - [d '] - sonorous, consonant, unpaired and soft and [e] - vowel, unstressed;

В - [ф] - deaf, consonant, paired and hard.

Total: 8 letters and 8 sounds.