Consonant cluster
The consonant cluster (also consonant cluster ) called in linguistics, the succession of two or more consonant phonemes. So it is in the German language at the phoneme sequence / ʃpr / in the word language a consonant cluster.
The consonant clusters that are allowed in a particular language, follow certain rules. These are described Phonotaktik in the phonological sub-discipline and named according to phonotactic rules.
- 2.1 More graph corresponding to a single volume
- 2.2 More graphs in the German
Clusters of consonants
Orthography of certain Konsonantenphonemverbindungen in the German language
Writing and sound level in everyday understanding often not kept apart. For example, some compounds of consonant phonemes in the German language do not appear as compounds of consonants on the graphematic level.
In the consonant letters x and z are consonant clusters of two consonant phonemes / k / and / s / and / t / and / s /. The combination of sounds / ks / is therefore in this case by a grapheme, that is, by a single letter, namely x shown, the combination of sounds / ts / by the grapheme for
For such Konsonantenphonemhäufungen corresponding to only one grapheme, there is as yet no fixed term ( in analogy to di-, trigraphs, etc., see below). Sometimes referred to Konsonantenphonemverbindungen of plosive and fricative as homorgane or heterorgane affricates.
The German word with the longest sequence of consonants is cold sweat with 8 consonants in a row. If one also considers words with vocalic consonants spoken, so sweat of march rhythm is exceeded by two consonants.
Language comparison
The German is particularly rich in consonant clusters. Some other languages have much less of it. The only consonant clusters in standard Chinese, for example, the six confusable initial sound affricates:
- [ tɕ ] (example:教, Pinyin: Jiao, teaching )
- [ tɕ ʰ ] (秋, Qiu, autumn)
- [ ts ] (字, zì, characters)
- [ ts ʰ ] (此, cǐ this )
- [ tʂ ] (中, zhōng, center)
- [ tʂ ʰ ] (春Chun, Spring )
The occurring in final nasal [ ŋ ] is - although it is represented in the Pinyin transliteration as
Cluster of consonant letters
More graphs, which correspond to a single sound
While the term consonant cluster refers to a sequence of consonant phonemes, the German consonant cluster term is sometimes also used to determine the succession of two consonants letters, ie multi- graph to name, which actually correspond to a single phoneme. Example of this is the word please, pronounced / bɪtə /. The rules, the basis of which the word is written with a double consonant please, be investigated among others in the Graphotaktik.
- Example: sing. When ng is two consecutive consonants letters or Konsonantengrapheme. These form a graphematic " consonant cluster " ( consonant letters accumulation or Konsonantengraphemhäufung ) of the Germans. This combination of sounds in this case corresponds to a single sound ( the phoneme / ŋ / ), ie, it is not about a consonant cluster in a real ( phonetic ) sense of the word, but a digraph.
Letters clusters that correspond to a single phoneme ( consonant - vowel or ), one generally speaks of multi- graphs.
Depending on the number of letters that are used to represent a single a single phoneme, ie sound, it is called di-or trigraphs.
Examples of German di-and trigraphs:
- Sch corresponds to the phoneme / ʃ / in the word school.
- Ph corresponds to the phoneme / f / in the word grapheme.
- Pp corresponds to the phoneme / p / in the word rag.
- Ie corresponds to the phoneme / i ː / in the word love.
- Ch corresponds to the phoneme / x / in the word stream.
More graphs in the German
Here is an overview of typical multi graphs and clusters of consonant letters in German. Clusters that occur only in words of non- Germanic origin ( Lehn and foreign words ) are violet formatted.
Are not included in the table diffraction and derivative forms of words and compound words. There are many more clusters of consonant letters are possible. And compounds containing a strain -h, are not taken into account.
Not taken into account are still historical forms of writing. For example, the baroque had a penchant for lush clusters of consonant letters ( gantz, Vernunfft, dencken ) that have not retained.
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