GLOSSARY OF LINGUISTIC TERMS (in progress)

​

AFFRICATE: A consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation. It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. English has two affricate phonemes, and, often spelled ch and j, respectively. (A phoneme is a sound or a group of different sounds perceived to have the same function by speakers of the language or dialect in question. An example is the English phoneme /k/, which occurs in words such as cat, kit, scat, skit.)

​

GLIDES: See Semi-vowel

​

LIQUIDS: See semi-vowel

​

PHENOMES: See PHONETICS 

​

PHONETICS: The study of the sounds of language. These sounds are called phonemes. There are hundreds of them used in different languages. English requires us to distinguish about 40.  https://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/phonetics.html 

​

SCHWA:  A very short neutral vowel sound, and like other vowels, its quality varies depending on the adjacent consonants. In English, schwa usually occurs in unstressed syllables. An example in English is the vowel sound of the "a" in the word about.

​

SEMI-VOWEL: A semivowel is a sound that acts as both a vowel and a consonant. The two main semivowels in English, W and Y, (as in wet and yet), are known as "glides", but there are others, such as R and L, known as "liquids". They are non -percussive.

​

SPIRANT: An older term for fricatives used by some American and European phoneticians and phonologists.[2] "Strident" could mean just "sibilant", but some include also labiodental and uvular fricatives in the class.