Concerning vowels and consonants

Speech consists of syllables, spoken one after another.

As the eminent phonetician Jack Windsor Lewis states: Every syllable must have a vowel or syllabic consonant.”

In the context of S4, syllabic consonants are referred to as “dark consonants”. An example is the “and” in “rock ‘n roll”. Here the vowel is reduced to almost nothing.

Basically, a vowel is an autonomous sound that can be pronounced alone and a consonant is an auxiliary sound that can go with a vowel, before or after.

Vowels and consonants can be used singly or in groups.

Accordingly, in the examples of consonants given here, they are associated with the simplest vowel of all, the schwa (ə). Otherwise, it is hard so see how some of them can be uttered.