Читать книгу The Grammar of English Grammars - Goold Brown - Страница 56

The letters are divided into two general classes, vowels and consonants.

A vowel is a letter which forms a perfect sound when uttered alone; as, a, e, o.

A consonant is a letter which cannot be perfectly uttered till joined to a vowel; as, b, c, d.[93]

The vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w and y. All the other letters are consonants.

W or y is called a consonant when it precedes a vowel heard in the same syllable; as in wine, twine, whine; ye, yet, youth: in all other cases, these letters are vowels; as in Yssel, Ystadt, yttria; newly, dewy, eyebrow.