Plosive

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In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.

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The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade ([ t ], [ d ]), tongue body ([ k ], [ ɡ ]), lips ([ p ], [ b ]), or glottis ([ ʔ ]). Plosives contrast with nasals, where the vocal tract is blocked but airflow continues through the nose, as in /m/ and /n/, and with fricatives, where partial occlusion impedes but does not block airflow in the vocal tract.

Terminology

The terms stop, occlusive, and plosive are often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on the distinction being made. The terms refer to different features of the consonant. "Stop" refers to the airflow that is stopped. "Occlusive" refers to the articulation, which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract. "Plosive" refers to the release burst (plosion) of the consonant. Some object to the use of "plosive" for inaudibly released stops, which may then instead be called "applosives". The International Phonetic Association and the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association use the term "plosive".

Either "occlusive" or "stop" may be used as a general term covering the other together with nasals. That is, 'occlusive' may be defined as oral occlusive (plosives and affricates) plus nasal occlusives (nasals such as [ m ], [ n ]), or 'stop' may be defined as oral stops (plosives) plus nasal stops (nasals). Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996) prefer to restrict 'stop' to oral non-affricated occlusives. They say, [1]

what we call simply nasals are called nasal stops by some linguists. We avoid this phrase, preferring to reserve the term 'stop' for sounds in which there is a complete interruption of airflow.

In addition, they restrict "plosive" for pulmonic consonants; "stops" in their usage include ejective and implosive consonants. [2]

If a term such as "plosive" is used for oral non-affricated obstruents, and nasals are not called nasal stops, then a stop may mean the glottal stop; "plosive" may even mean non-glottal stop. In other cases, however, it may be the word "plosive" that is restricted to the glottal stop. Generally speaking, plosives do not have plosion (a release burst). In English, for example, there are plosives with no audible release, such as the /p/ in apt. However, English plosives do have plosion in other environments.

In Ancient Greek, the term for plosive was ἄφωνον (áphōnon), [3] which means "unpronounceable", "voiceless", or "silent", because plosives could not be pronounced without a vowel. This term was calqued into Latin as mūta, and from there borrowed into English as mute. [4] Mute was sometimes used instead for voiceless consonants, whether plosives or fricatives, a usage that was later replaced with surd, from Latin surdus "deaf" or "silent", [5] a term still occasionally seen in the literature. [6] For more information on the Ancient Greek terms, see Ancient Greek phonology § Terminology.

Articulation

A plosive is typically analysed as having up to three phases:

Only the hold phase is requisite. A plosive may lack an approach when it is preceded by a consonant that involves an occlusion at the same place of articulation, as in [d] in end or old. In many languages, such as Malay and Vietnamese, word-final plosives lack a release burst, even when followed by a vowel, or have a nasal release. See no audible release.

Nasal occlusives are somewhat similar. In the catch and hold, airflow continues through the nose; in the release, there is no burst, and final nasals are typically unreleased across most languages.

In affricates, the catch and hold are those of a plosive, but the release is that of a fricative. That is, affricates are plosive–fricative contours.

Common plosives

All spoken natural languages in the world have plosives, [8] and most have at least the voiceless plosives [p], [t], and [k]. However, there are exceptions: Colloquial Samoan lacks the coronal [t], and several North American languages, such as the Iroquoian languages (e.g., Mohawk and Cherokee), and Arabic lack the labial [p]. In fact, the labial is the least stable of the voiceless plosives in the languages of the world, as the unconditioned sound change [p] → [f] (→ [h] → Ø) is quite common in unrelated languages, having occurred in the history of Classical Japanese, Classical Arabic, and Proto-Celtic, for instance. Formal Samoan has only one word with velar [k]; colloquial Samoan conflates /t/ and /k/ to /k/. Ni‘ihau Hawaiian has [t] for /k/ to a greater extent than Standard Hawaiian, but neither distinguish a /k/ from a /t/. It may be more accurate to say that Hawaiian and colloquial Samoan do not distinguish velar and coronal plosives than to say they lack one or the other.

Ontena Gadsup has only 1 phonemic plosive /ʔ/. [9] [10] Yanyuwa distinguishes plosives in 7 places of articulations /bd̪dḏɖɡ̟ɡ̠/ (it does not have voiceless plosives) which is the most out of all languages. [11]

See Common occlusives for the distribution of both plosives and nasals.

Classification

Voice

Voiced plosives are pronounced with vibration of the vocal cords, voiceless plosives without. Plosives are commonly voiceless, and many languages, such as Mandarin Chinese and Hawaiian, have only voiceless plosives. Others, such as most Australian languages, are indeterminate: plosives may vary between voiced and voiceless without distinction, some of them like Yanyuwa and Yidiny have only voiced plosives.

Aspiration

In aspirated plosives, the vocal cords (vocal folds) are abducted at the time of release. In a prevocalic aspirated plosive (a plosive followed by a vowel or sonorant), the time when the vocal cords begin to vibrate will be delayed until the vocal folds come together enough for voicing to begin, and will usually start with breathy voicing. The duration between the release of the plosive and the voice onset is called the voice onset time (VOT) or the aspiration interval. Highly aspirated plosives have a long period of aspiration, so that there is a long period of voiceless airflow (a phonetic [h]) before the onset of the vowel. In tenuis plosives, the vocal cords come together for voicing immediately following the release, and there is little or no aspiration (a voice onset time close to zero). In English, there may be a brief segment of breathy voice that identifies the plosive as voiceless and not voiced. In voiced plosives, the vocal folds are set for voice before the release, and often vibrate during the entire hold, and in English, the voicing after release is not breathy. A plosive is called "fully voiced" if it is voiced during the entire occlusion. In English, however, initial voiced plosives like /#b/ or /#d/ may have no voicing during the period of occlusion, or the voicing may start shortly before the release and continue after release, and word-final plosives tend to be fully devoiced: In most dialects of English, the final /b/, /d/ and /g/ in words like rib, mad and dog are fully devoiced. [12] Initial voiceless plosives, like the p in pie, are aspirated, with a palpable puff of air upon release, whereas a plosive after an s, as in spy, is tenuis (unaspirated). When spoken near a candle flame, the flame will flicker more after the words par, tar, and car are articulated, compared with spar, star, and scar. In the common pronunciation of papa, the initial p is aspirated whereas the medial p is not.

Length

In a geminate or long consonant, the occlusion lasts longer than in simple consonants. In languages where plosives are only distinguished by length (e.g., Arabic, Ilwana, Icelandic), the long plosives may be held up to three times as long as the short plosives. Italian is well known for its geminate plosives, as the double t in the name Vittoria takes just as long to say as the ct does in English Victoria. Japanese also prominently features geminate consonants, such as in the minimal pair 来た kita 'came' and 切った kitta 'cut'. Estonian is unusual for contrasting three lengths, as in the minimal triplet kabi/kɑpi/ 'hoof', kapi/kɑpːi/ 'wardrobe [gen. sg.]', and kappi/kɑpːːi/ 'wardrobe [ill. sg.]'. [13]

There are many languages where the features voice, aspiration, and length reinforce each other, and in such cases it may be hard to determine which of these features predominates. In such cases, the terms fortis is sometimes used for aspiration or gemination, whereas lenis is used for single, tenuous, or voiced plosives. However, the terms fortis and lenis are poorly defined, and their meanings vary from source to source.

Nasalization

Simple nasals are differentiated from plosives only by a lowered velum that allows the air to escape through the nose during the occlusion. Nasals are acoustically sonorants, as they have a non-turbulent airflow and are nearly always voiced, but they are articulatorily obstruents, as there is complete blockage of the oral cavity. The term occlusive may be used as a cover term for both nasals and plosives.

A prenasalized stop starts out with a lowered velum that raises during the occlusion. The closest examples in English are consonant clusters such as the [nd] in candy, but many languages have prenasalized stops that function phonologically as single consonants. Swahili is well known for having words beginning with prenasalized stops, as in ndege 'bird', and in many languages of the South Pacific, such as Fijian, these are even spelled with single letters: b [mb], d [nd].

A postnasalized plosive begins with a raised velum that lowers during the occlusion. This causes an audible nasal release, as in English sudden. This could also be compared to the /dn/ cluster found in Russian and other Slavic languages, which can be seen in the name of the Dnieper River.

The terms prenasalization and postnasalization are normally used only in languages where these sounds are phonemic: that is, not analyzed into sequences of plosive plus nasal.

Airstream mechanism

Stops may be made with more than one airstream mechanism. The normal mechanism is pulmonic egressive, that is, with air flowing outward from the lungs. All spoken languages have pulmonic stops. Some languages have stops made with other mechanisms as well: ejective stops (glottalic egressive), implosive stops (glottalic ingressive), or click consonants (lingual ingressive).

Tenseness

A fortis plosive is produced with more muscular tension than a lenis plosive. However, this is difficult to measure, and there is usually debate over the actual mechanism of alleged fortis or lenis consonants.

There are a series of plosives in the Korean language, sometimes written with the IPA symbol for ejectives, which are produced using "stiff voice", meaning there is increased contraction of the glottis than for normal production of voiceless plosives. The indirect evidence for stiff voice is in the following vowels, which have a higher fundamental frequency than those following other plosives. The higher frequency is explained as a result of the glottis being tense. Other such phonation types include breathy voice, or murmur; slack voice; and creaky voice.

Transcription

The following plosives have been given dedicated symbols in the IPA.

Symbols for plosive consonants
⟨p⟩ voiceless bilabial plosive ⟨b⟩ voiced bilabial plosive
⟨t⟩ voiceless alveolar plosive ⟨d⟩ voiced alveolar plosive
⟨ʈ⟩ voiceless retroflex plosive ⟨ɖ⟩ voiced retroflex plosive
⟨c⟩ voiceless palatal plosive ⟨ɟ⟩ voiced palatal plosive
⟨k⟩ voiceless velar plosive ⟨ɡ⟩ voiced velar plosive
⟨q⟩ voiceless uvular plosive ⟨ɢ⟩ voiced uvular plosive
⟨ʡ⟩ epiglottal plosive
⟨ʔ⟩ glottal stop

English

[ptk]voiceless,
aspirated word-initially, tenuis in clusters after s, word-final often with no audible release
[bdɡ]unaspirated,
partially voiced word-initially, fully voiced intervocalically, fully devoiced when word-final
[ʔ] glottal stop, not as a phoneme in most dialects

Variations

Many subclassifications of plosives are transcribed by adding a diacritic or modifier letter to the IPA symbols above.

Phonation and voice-onset time
⟨ t⟩voiceless⟨ d⟩voiced
⟨t˭⟩tenuis⟨tʰ⟩aspirated
⟨ dʱ⟩breathy-voiced
Airstream mechanism
⟨t⟩⟨d⟩pulmonic egressive
⟨tʼ⟩ejective⟨ɗ⟩implosive
⟨!⟩click
Nasality
⟨ⁿd⟩prenasalized⟨dⁿ⟩nasally released
⟨d̥⟩lenis:
⟨d⟩ with voicelessness diacritic		⟨t͈⟩tense⟨tt dd⟩
⟨tː dː⟩		geminate

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allophone</span> Phone used to pronounce a single phoneme

In phonology, an allophone is one of multiple possible spoken sounds – or phones – used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plosive and the aspirated form are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in some languages such as Central Thai. Similarly, in Spanish, and are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in English.

Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like sound. A simple breathy phonation,, can sometimes be heard as an allophone of English between vowels, such as in the word behind, for some speakers.

A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in the case of German ; or the side of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh. This turbulent airflow is called frication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manner of articulation</span> Configuration and interaction of the articulators when making a speech sound

In articulatory phonetics, the manner of articulation is the configuration and interaction of the articulators when making a speech sound. One parameter of manner is stricture, that is, how closely the speech organs approach one another. Others include those involved in the r-like sounds, and the sibilancy of fricatives.

In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majority of consonants are oral consonants. Examples of nasals in English are, and, in words such as nose, bring and mouth. Nasal occlusives are nearly universal in human languages. There are also other kinds of nasal consonants in some languages.

The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics that studies articulation and ways that humans produce speech. Articulatory phoneticians explain how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of different physiological structures. Generally, articulatory phonetics is concerned with the transformation of aerodynamic energy into acoustic energy. Aerodynamic energy refers to the airflow through the vocal tract. Its potential form is air pressure; its kinetic form is the actual dynamic airflow. Acoustic energy is variation in the air pressure that can be represented as sound waves, which are then perceived by the human auditory system as sound.

In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some languages have glottalized sonorants with creaky voice that pattern with ejectives phonologically, and other languages have ejectives that pattern with implosives, which has led to phonologists positing a phonological class of glottalic consonants, which includes ejectives.

In phonetics, the airstream mechanism is the method by which airflow is created in the vocal tract. Along with phonation and articulation, it is one of three main components of speech production. The airstream mechanism is mandatory for most sound production and constitutes the first part of this process, which is called initiation.

In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. Examples of archetypal nasal sounds include and.

Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in addition to expelling air from the lungs. Therefore, unlike the purely glottalic ejective consonants, implosives can be modified by phonation. Contrastive implosives are found in approximately 13% of the world's languages.

An obstruent is a speech sound such as, , or that is formed by obstructing airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as consonants.

The voiced labiodental plosive or stop is a consonant sound produced like a, but with the lower lip contacting the upper teeth, as in. This can be represented in the IPA as ⟨b̪⟩. A separate symbol that is sometimes seen, especially in Bantu linguistics, but not recognized by the IPA, is the db ligature⟨ȸ⟩.

The voiceless labiodental plosive or stop is a consonant sound produced like a [p], but with the lower lip contacting the upper teeth, as in [f]. This can be represented in the IPA as ⟨p̪⟩. A separate symbol not recognized by the IPA that was occasionally seen, especially in Bantu linguistics, is the qp ligature⟨ȹ⟩.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiceless uvular implosive</span> Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ʛ̥⟩ or ⟨ʠ⟩ in IPA

A voiceless uvular implosive is a rare consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʛ̥ ⟩ or ⟨qʼ↓⟩. A dedicated IPA letter, ⟨ʠ⟩, was withdrawn in 1993.

In linguistics, pre-stopping, also known as pre-occlusion or pre-plosion, is a phonological process involving the historical or allophonic insertion of a very short stop consonant before a sonorant, such as a short before a nasal or a lateral, or a short before a nasal. The resulting sounds are called pre-stopped consonants, or sometimes pre-ploded or pre-occluded consonants, although technically may be considered an occlusive/stop without the pre-occlusion.

In phonetics, an occlusive, sometimes known as a stop, is a consonant sound produced by occluding airflow in the vocal tract, but not necessarily in the nasal tract. The duration of the block is the occlusion of the consonant. An occlusive may refer to one or more of the following, depending on the author:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiceless velar implosive</span> Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ɠ̊⟩ in IPA

A voiceless velar implosive is a very rare consonantal sound. The symbol for this sound in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ⟨ɠ̊⟩ or ⟨kʼ↓⟩. A dedicated IPA letter, ⟨ƙ⟩, was withdrawn in 1993.

Nasal clicks are click consonants pronounced with nasal airflow. All click types have nasal variants, and these are attested in four or five phonations: voiced, voiceless, aspirated, murmured, and—in the analysis of Miller (2011)—glottalized.

Pulmonic-contour clicks, also called sequential linguo-pulmonic consonants, are consonants that transition from a click to an ordinary pulmonic sound, or more precisely, have an audible delay between the front and rear release of the click. All click types have linguo-pulmonic variants, which occur as both stops and affricates, and are attested in four phonations: tenuis, voiced, aspirated, and murmured. At least a voiceless linguo-pulmonic affricate is attested from all Khoisan languages of southern Africa, as well as (reportedly) from the Bantu language Yeyi from the same area, but they are unattested elsewhere.

References

  1. ↑ Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. p. 102. ISBN   0-631-19815-6.
  2. ↑ Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 77–78. ISBN   0-631-19815-6.
  3. ↑ ἄφωνος . Liddell, Henry George ; Scott, Robert ; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project
  4. ↑ "mute" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  5. ↑ surdus . Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short. A Latin Dictionary on Perseus Project .
  6. ↑ "surd" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  7. ↑ Collins, Beverly; Mees, Inger M. (2013). Practical Phonetics and Phonology: A Resource Book for Students (3rd ed.). Routledge. pp. 85–6. ISBN   978-0-415-50650-2.
  8. ↑ König, W. (ed) dtv Atlas zur deutschen Sprache dtv 1994[ full citation needed ]
  9. ↑ Ulfsbjorninn, Shanti; Lahrouchi, Mohamed. "The Typology of the Distribution of Edge : the propensity for bipositionality". Papers in Historical Phonology. 1. Archived from the original on 2022-02-19 – via HAL-SHS - Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société.
  10. ↑ "Organised Phonology Data - Gadsup ( Ontena dialect) Language [GAJ] - Eastern Highlands Province" (PDF). SIL International . Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-03-08.
  11. ↑ "Yanuyuwa". UCLA Phonetics Lab Data. University of California, Los Angeles.
  12. ↑ Cruttenden, Alan Gimsons Pronunciation of English.[ full citation needed ]
  13. ↑ Türk, Helen; Lippus, Pärtel; Šimko, Juraj (2017). "Context-dependent articulation of consonant gemination in Estonian". Laboratory Phonology. 8 (1): 26.

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