Name: Isuekebhor Blessed

Course code: THR113

Student ID: B1200423

Lecturer: Dr Akioya

Date: 4/08/2023

Topic: Compare and contrast

a. Vowels and consonants
b. The pure vowel and the dipthongs

COMPARISON AND CONTRACTIONS BETWEEN THE VOWEL AND CONSONANT SOUND

There are five vowels and 21 consonants in English, right? Well, no.

Vowels and consonants are sounds, not letters. Depending on your accent and how thinly you slice them,
there are about 20 vowels and 24 consonants.

The difference between vowels and consonants

A vowel is a speech sound made with your mouth fairly open, the nucleus of a spoken syllable.

A consonant is a sound made with your mouth fairly closed.

When we talk, consonants break up the stream of vowels (functioning as syllable onsets and codas), so
that we don’t sound like we’ve just been to the dentist for four fillings and the anaesthetic hasn’t worn off
yet.

Consonants require more precise articulation than vowels, which is why most people find them harder to
learn.

Only a few people (children especially) with severe speech sound difficulties (often called dyspraxia or
apraxia) sometimes need therapy to help them produce vowel sounds correctly.

Most syllables contain a vowel, though vowel-like consonants can occasionally be syllables. And to
complicate matters, many English vowels are technically two or three vowels smooshed together.

COMPARING QUALITIES

How consonants are produced

Saying consonant sounds involves constricting airflow in different locations in your mouth by:

briefly stopping then releasing the air (“p”, “b”, “t”, “d”, “k”, “g”),
diverting the airflow and associated resonance to your nose (“m”, “n”, “ng”),
squeezing the air through a narrow space (“th” as in “thin”, “th” as in “then”, “f”, “v”, “s”, “z”, “sh”, “zh” as
in “vision”, “h”, and in posh dialects, “wh”),
combining stopping then squeezing (“ch”, “j”), or
narrowing the vocal tract (“w”, “y”, “r”, “l”).
Consonants that are like vowels – approximants
The last four consonant sounds on the above list – “y”, “w”, “r”, “l” – are produced with less mouth
constriction than other consonants, and in linguistics are called “approximants”.

Approximants occupy a kind of linguistic grey area between vowels and consonants, in fact “w” and “y”
are also known as semivowels.

There’s very little difference between the consonant sound “y” and the vowel sound “ee” as in
“see/sea/me”, and between the consonant sound “w” and the vowel sound “ooh” as in
“moon/rule/grew”.

These sounds are classified as consonants because they generally behave like consonants, that is, they’re
(in) syllable onsets not syllable nuclei.

Syllabic consonants
In many English dialects, the sound “l” can be a syllable all by itself in words like “bottle” and “middle”.
This is also true of the sound “n” in words like “button” and “hidden”.

In these words, the tongue has just said “t” or “d”, so it’s already in the right place to go straight into the
sound “l” or “n”, without saying a vowel first. However, we still write a “vowel letter” in this syllable (le, on,
en) and we say a vowel sound in other words with similar final spellings, like “giggle” and “dabble”,
“ribbon” and “beckon”, “happen” and “embiggen”.

The sound “m” can also act as a syllable in words like “rhythm” and “algorithm”, again because the sounds
“th” and “m” are physically very close together. In this case we don’t write a “vowel letter” in the last
syllable, but we do say a vowel sound in the last syllable of most words spelt like this, like “autism” and
“criticism”

Voiced and voiceless consonants

Some consonants are produced using your voice (“b”, “d”, “g”, “m”, “n”, “ng”, “th” as in “then”, “v”, “z”,
“zh” as in “vision”, “j”, “y”, “w”, “r”, “l”) and the rest are voiceless (“p”, “t”, “k”, “th” as in “thin”, “f”, “s”,
“sh”, “ch”, “h”).

Most consonants come in neat voiced-voiceless pairs – “p/b”, “t/d”, “k/g”, “th as in thin/th as in then”,
“f/v”, “s/z”, “sh/zh as in vision”, and “ch/j” (yes, I read a recent Grammarly blog post, and have decided to
start using the Oxford Comma).

Try saying each of these sound pairs in turn, and you’ll notice that the main difference between each pair
is that you use your voice for the first sound, but not the second one.

If you are using your voice when you say the sounds “p”, “t”, “k”, “th” as in “thin”, “f”, “s”, “sh” or “ch”,
you’re saying them wrong. This can confuse people about the difference between sounds, and/or cause
blending problems
The sound “h”, is also voiceless, but lost its voiced pair somewhere down the crack between Old and
Middle English, though its ghost still makes guest appearances as the spelling gh in words like “thought”,
“night” and “daughter”.

The nasal sounds “m”, “n” and “ng” don’t have voiceless pairs, but are made in the same spots in your
mouth as, respectively, “p/b”, “t/d” and “k/g”.

How vowels are produced (comparing qualities)

All vowel sounds are voiced, unless you’re whispering or speaking Japanese, Quebecois, or a North
American indigenous language like Comanche or Cheyenne.

Vowels are sounds produced with the mouth fairly open, and differ by mouth shape, for example “ee” is a
high front vowel and “o” as in “got” is a low back vowel.

Some vowels, like the “a” in “cat” and the “i” in “big”, are said with the mouth in the same position from
start to finish (monophthongs).

Some vowels, like the “ay” in “paper” and the “I” in “hi”, move from one mouth position to another
(diphthongs).

There’s also one vowel in English, the “you” in “human”, which is actually a combination of a consonant
and a vowel (“y” + “ooh”). But knowing this doesn’t help us spell it, there isn’t usually any need to notice
the little “y” sound, which in some dialects is omitted

Consonant sounds spelt with “vowel letters”

Three English “vowel letters” are commonly used in spellings of consonant sounds, such as (the links take
you to wordlists for each spelling):

The letter E in the ve in “solve”, the se in “house” and “please”, the ce in “dance” and “ocean”, the ze in
“sneeze”, the the in “soothe”, the ed in “jumped” and “hummed”, the dge in “smudge”, and the che in
“avalanche”.

The letter I represents the sound “y” in words like “union” and “brilliant, plus it’s in the ti in “motion”, the
ci in “social”, the si in “pension” and “version”, the gi in “religion”, the sci in “conscious”, the ssi in
“passion”, and the xi in “anxious”.

The letter U is a common way to spell the consonant sound “w”, as in “queen” and “penguin” (we usually
write qu and gu, not kw, cw or gw), and is also part of the gu in “guess”, the gue in “league”, the qu in
“liquor”, the que in “boutique”, and the “bu” in “build”.

The sound “you” as in “human” is actually a combination of a consonant and a vowel (y+ooh), though it’s
mostly spelt with vowel letters: U as in human, U…E as in tune, EW as in few, UE as in cue or EU as in feud.
Nouns that start with this sound like “unicorn”, “ute” and “Europe” thus start with a a vowel letter but a
consonant sound, which is why we say “a unicorn”, “a ute” and “a European”, not “an unicorn”, “an ute” or
“an European”.

The obvious one here is the letter Y, weirdly called a consonant letter despite mostly representing vowel
sounds, in words like “my”, “duty” and “gym”

On top of all this, there are heaps of vowel sounds spelt with two, three and four letters which contain
“consonant letters”, mostly the letters W, Y, R and L. Here are some examples:
The letter W is in the aw in “saw”, the ew in “new” and “grew”, and the ow in “how” and “show”.

The letter Y is in the ay in “play”, the ey in “grey” and “valley”, the oy in “boy”, the ye in bye, the y…e in
“type”, and the yr in “myrtle”. All four letters representing the vowel sound in the word “myrrh” are
supposedly “consonant letters”.

The letter R is in the ar in “car”, “warm” and “scarce”, the er in “her”, the ir in “bird”, the or in “fork”, the ur
in “curl”, the air in “hair”, the are in “care”, the ear in “hear”, “learn” and “bear”, the ere in “here”, “there”
and “were”, the eer in “beer”, the oar in “soar”, the ore in “sore”, the our in “pour”, the oor in “door”, the
eur in “poseur”, the aur in “Minotaur”, and in the English I speak and write, the r in “flour”, re in “centre”
and our in “harbour”.

The letter L is in the al in “calm” and walk, and the ol in “yolk”.

The ghostly letters G and H are in the igh in “high”, the ough in “thought”, “drought”, “though”, “through”
and “thorough”, the eigh in “weight”, the augh in “caught”, and the aigh in “straight”.

The letter H is also in the ah in “galah”, the eh in “meh”, the eah in “yeah”, the oh in “John”, the ooh in
“pooh”, and the uh in “duh”. If I can write it and you can read and understand it, it’s a real word.

So, what’s the difference between vowels and consonants?

*Vowels and consonants are sounds not letters,
*Vowels are the loud sounds that form the nuclei of each syllable, and consonants separate them.
*The letters B, C, D, F, J, K, M, N, P, Q, S, T, V, X and Z are mainly used to spell consonants,
*The letters A and O are mainly used to spell vowels, and
*The letters E, G, H, I, L, R, U, W, Y are used as/in spellings representing both vowels and consonants.
Comparison Table
Parameters of comparison Vowels and Consonants

Speech sounds

Touch
Total number of alphabets in English
Total number of sounds in English
Syllable
Vowel
In a vowel, speech sound is without any restriction of the vocal tract

There’s no touching of lips, teeth, or mouth while pronouncing a vowel.

There are 5 vowels.
There are 20 vowel sounds.
A vowel is the main part of the syllable.
Consonant
In consonant, speech sound is restricted in the vocal tract accompanied by vibration of the vocal cord.
There’s touching of lips, teeth, or mouth while pronouncing a consonant.
There are 21 consonants
There are 24 consonants sounds.
In contrast, the consonant is dependent on a vowel for the formation of a syllable.
COMPARISON AND CONTRAST BETWEEN THE PURE VOWEL(MONOPHTHONG) AND DIPTHONGS

What is Monophthong/ pure vowel?

Monophthong, also known as pure vowel is simply a vowel. The word monophthong comes from the old
Greek language. Mono means one or single, and the -phthong means sound or tone. The word
monophthong shows that a vowel is spoken with exactly one tone and one mouth position. For example,
when you say “teeth”, then while you are creating the sound of the “ee”, nothing changes for that sound.
In other words, Monophthongs are also called ‘pure vowel sounds’ and they are 12 in number. They
include:

1 i: for example, see, Speak, believe

2 ɪ for example, wit, mystic, little

3 e for example, set, meant, bet

4 æ for example, pat, cash, bad

5 ɑ: for example, half, part, father

6 ɒ for example, not, what, cost

7 ɔ: for example, port, caught, all

8 ʊ for example, wood, could put

9 u: for example, for example, you, music, rude

10 ʌ for example, bus, come, but

11 ɜ: for example, beard, word, fur

12 ə for example, alone, butter

What is Diphthong?

A Diphthong is a vowel that a person has to move his or her mouth into two different positions to make.
Diphthong comes from the old Greek language. Di means two or double, while the part -phthong means
sound or tone, It is a vowel where two different vowel qualities can be heard. For examples are: waist, die,
noise, road, house, fierce, bear, sure. Each of these is a different vowel sound
There are eight primary diphthongs in the English language,They are:
/eɪ/ as in day, pay, say, lay
/aɪ/ as in sky, buy, cry, tie
/ɔɪ/ as in boy, toy, coy or the first syllable of soya
/ɪə/ as in beer, pier, hear
/eə/ as in bear, pair, and hair
/ʊə/ as in tour, poor or the first syllable of tourist
/əʊ/ as in oh, no, so, or phone
/aʊ/ as in all the words of "How now brown cow!"

The Difference between Monophthong and Diphtong

A monophthong is a simple vowel sound that a person does not have to move his mouth to make, like the
“oo” sound in “book.” In a diphthong, the person combines two different monophthongs, as with the “oi”
sound in the word “oil.” The person starts with the mouth in the position to make an “o” sound, then
quickly moves the mouth to make a hard “e” sound. Another example is the “ou” sound in the word
“house.” The mouth starts out making a sound like the soft “a” sound in “flat,” then moves to make the a
hard “oo” sound like the one in “boots.“
The main difference is that a monophthong is a phoneme that consists of only one (“mono” means one)
vowel sound and a diphthong is a phoneme consisting of two (“di” means two) vowel sounds that are
“connected” or “linked” to each other.