Cover symbols used in linguistics

Linguists use a variety of symbols to represent not just single sounds, but certain particular classes of sounds. They are usually capital letters. This article lists those "cover symbols".

Consonants

Symbol	Definition
C	Any consonant
H	(Indo-European studies) Any laryngeal consonant.
N	Any nasal consonant.
r	Any rhotic consonant, regardless of its phonetic realization.
R	Any resonant consonant.
S	Any sibilant consonant.
T	Any dental plosive.

Vowels

Capitalised vowels are commonly used in discussions of languages with vowel harmony. They often indicate different harmonic variants of an underlying archiphonemic vowel.

Some vowel symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet, such as ⟨ə, ø, y⟩ are also sometimes used as cover symbols.

Symbol	Description
A	A front or back open vowel.
ə	A reduced vowel.
O	A front or back rounded mid vowel.
ö	A front (more rarely central) rounded mid vowel.
ø	A front (more rarely central) rounded mid vowel.
U	A front or back rounded close vowel.
ü	A front (more rarely central) rounded close vowel.
y	A front (more rarely central) rounded close vowel.
V	Any vowel.

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