Alveolo-palatal consonant

Last updated October 05, 2023

This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (alveolopalatal, alveo-palatal or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal articulation. In the official IPA chart, alveolo-palatals would appear between the retroflex and palatal consonants but for "lack of space".^[1] Ladefoged and Maddieson characterize the alveolo-palatals as palatalized postalveolars (palato-alveolars), articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate,^[2] whereas Esling describes them as advanced palatals (pre-palatals), the furthest front of the dorsal consonants, articulated with the body of the tongue approaching the alveolar ridge.^[1] These descriptions are essentially equivalent, since the contact includes both the blade and body (but not the tip) of the tongue (see schematic at right). They are front enough that the fricatives and affricates are sibilants, the only sibilants among the dorsal consonants.

According to Daniel Recasens, alveolo-palatal consonants are realized through the formation of a simultaneous closure or constriction at the alveolar and palatal zones with a primary articulator which encompasses the blade and the tongue dorsum. Their place of articulation may include the postalveolar zone and the prepalate, but also a larger contact area extending towards the front alveolar zone and the back palate surface. The tongue tip is bent downwards and the tongue dorsum is raised and fronted during the production of these consonants.^[3]

Sibilants

The alveolo-palatal sibilants are often used in varieties of Chinese such as Mandarin, Hakka, and Wu, as well as other East Asian languages such as Japanese and Korean, Tibeto-Burman such as Tibetan and Burmese as well as Tai languages such as Thai, Lao, Shan and Zhuang. Alveolo-palatal sibilants are also a feature of many Slavic languages, such as Polish, Russian, and Serbo-Croatian, and of Northwest Caucasian languages, such as Abkhaz and Ubykh. The alveolo-palatal consonants included in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA	Description	Example
IPA	Description	Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
ɕ	Voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant	Mandarin	小 (xiǎo)	[ɕiɑu˨˩˦]	small
ʑ	Voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant	Polish	zioło	[ʑɔwɔ]	herb
t͡ɕ	Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate	Serbo-Croatian	kuća / кућа	[kut͡ɕa]	house
d͡ʑ	Voiced alveolo-palatal affricate	Japanese	地震 (jishin)	[d͡ʑiɕĩɴ]	earthquake

The letters ⟨ɕ⟩ and ⟨ʑ⟩ are essentially equivalent to ⟨ ʃʲ⟩ and ⟨ʒʲ⟩. They are the sibilant homologues of the pre-palatal fricatives [ç˖] and [ʝ˖].

Stops, nasals, and liquids

Symbols for alveolo-palatal stops U+0236ȶU+0221ȡ(ȶ,ȡ), nasals U+0235ȵ(ȵ) and liquids U+0234ȴ(ȴ) are sometimes used in sinological circles (a circumflex accent is also sometimes seen), but they are not recognized by the IPA.

In standard IPA, they can be transcribed ⟨t̠ʲ d̠ʲ n̠ʲ l̠ʲ⟩ or ⟨c̟ ɟ̟ ɲ̟ ʎ̟⟩. An alternative transcription for the voiced alveolo-palatal stop and nasal is ⟨ɟ˖ ɲ˖⟩, but it is used only when ⟨ɟ̟ ɲ̟⟩ cannot be displayed properly.

For example, the Polish nasal represented with the letter ń is a palatalized laminal alveolar nasal and thus often described as alveolo-palatal rather than palatal. The "palatal" consonants of Indigenous Australian languages are also often closer to alveolo-palatal in their articulation.

Extra-IPA	IPA	Description	Example
Extra-IPA	IPA	Description	Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
ȶ,t̂	t̠ʲ,c̟	Voiceless alveolo-palatal stop	Korean	티끌 tikkeul	[t̠ʲʰiʔk͈ɯl]	dust
ȡ,d̂	d̠ʲ,ɟ̟	Voiced alveolo-palatal stop	Korean	반디 bandi	[b̥ɐnd̠ʲi]	firefly
ȵ,n̂	n̠ʲ,ɲ̟	Alveolo-palatal nasal	Nuosu	ꑌ nyi	[n̠ʲi˧]	sit
ȴ,l̂	l̠ʲ,ʎ̟	Alveolo-palatal lateral	Catalan	ull	[ˈul̠ʲ]	eye

Contrasting with palatovelar consonants

In Migueleño Chiquitano, phoneme /ȶ/ contrasts with phoneme /c̠/;^[4] in the syllabic coda (or intervowel) position in conservative Irish, laminal alveolo-palatal phoneme /ṉʲ/ (termed fortis slender coronal nasal, orthographic example inn) contrasts with both dorsal palatal phoneme /ɲ/^[5] (termed slender dorsal nasal, orthographic example ing or -nc-) and apical palatalized alveolar phoneme /nʲ/ (termed lenis slender coronal nasal, orthographic example in);^[6] while general Irish other than Munster Irish contrasts alveolo-palatal nasal only with palatal nasal. In both cases, the palatal consonants work as the palatalization of velar consonants while alveolo-palatal consonants work as the palatalization of alveolar consonants.

In some spoken Chinese, such as the Luchuan Hakka [ zh ] in Hengshan [ zh ], contrast the alveolo-palatal nasal with the palato-velar nasal. For example, the following contrasting pairs can bs found in Luchuan Ngai.

Luchuan Ngai contrasting pairs
EMC	Character	Pronunciation	Tone
newH	尿	niau	去
nraewX	撓	niau	阳平
nyew	饒	ȵiau	阳平
ngewH	澆	ɲ̠iau	上
nrjem	黏	niam	阴平
nyemX	染	ȵiam	上
ngjaem	嚴	ɲ̠iam	阳平
nyin	人	ȵin	阳平
nyin	仁	ɲ̠in	阳平

Although a number of spoken Chinese, such as standard Mandarin, also contrast EMC alveolo-palatal nasal with velar nasal of class III (palatalizing medial), most don't contrast them in a way that alveolo-palatal differs from palatal. For example, in Pianlian [ Wikidata ] Hakka, alveolo-palatal nasal marginally contrasts with velar nasal under close front medials, but there is little sign of palatal contrasts.

M pairs
EMC	Character	Pronunciation	Tone
nrjep	聶	niap	阳
nrjep	鑷	ȵiap
nyip	入	ȵap
net	捏	ŋiap

Thus most frequently, the Sinologist use of ȵ instead of ɲ is not to indicate a contrast, but to emphasize its primary allophone not to be the Turkish [ɲ], or to indicate its coronal origin or that it has evolved with other dorsal consonants which have become alveolopalatals, where ɲ is reserved for postpalatals evolved from dorsal consonants. However, since ȵ has also been unfortunately used by some for Meixian Hakka, the distinction of usage has becoming vague. ȶ, on the other hand, has retained its accurate usage representing phonemes in certain spoken Chinese in Hengyang and has never been applied on Hakka or on certain Mandarin in or near Shandong.

Related Research Articles

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.

In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articulator. Active articulators are organs capable of voluntary movement which create the constriction, while passive articulators are so called because they are normally fixed and are the parts with which an active articulator makes contact. Along with the manner of articulation and phonation, the place of articulation gives the consonant its distinctive sound.

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth.

Coronals are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Among places of articulation, only the coronal consonants can be divided into as many articulation types: apical, laminal, domed, or subapical as well as different postalveolar articulations : palato-alveolar, alveolo-palatal and retroflex. Only the front of the tongue (coronal) has such dexterity among the major places of articulation, allowing such variety of distinctions. Coronals have another dimension, grooved, to make sibilants in combination with the orientations above.

An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation. It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. English has two affricate phonemes, and, often spelled ch and j, respectively.

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.

Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words sip, zip, ship, and genre. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet used to denote the sibilant sounds in these words are, respectively,. Sibilants have a characteristically intense sound, which accounts for their paralinguistic use in getting one's attention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pharyngealization</span> Articulation of consonants or vowels

Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.

Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate, the place of articulation for palatal consonants. Examples of postalveolar consonants are the English palato-alveolar consonants, as in the words "ship", "'chill", "vision", and "jump", respectively.

In phonetics, palato-alveolar or palatoalveolar consonants are postalveolar consonants, nearly always sibilants, that are weakly palatalized with a domed (bunched-up) tongue. They are common sounds cross-linguistically and occur in English words such as ship and chip.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retroflex consonant</span> Type of consonant articulation

A retroflex, apico-domal, or cacuminalconsonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants—especially in Indology.

The voiced palatal nasal is a type of consonant used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɲ⟩, a lowercase letter n with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom of the left stem of the letter. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J. The IPA symbol ⟨ɲ⟩ is visually similar to ⟨ɳ ⟩, the symbol for the retroflex nasal, which has a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem, and to ⟨ŋ⟩, the symbol for the velar nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem.

The voiced palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound in some vocal languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɟ⟩, a barred dotless ⟨j⟩ that was initially created by turning the type for a lowercase letter ⟨f⟩. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J\.

In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the active articulator and passive articulator. Standard Spanish ⟨rr⟩ as in perro, for example, is an alveolar trill.

Dorsal consonants are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue. They include the palatal, velar and, in some cases, alveolo-palatal and uvular consonants. They contrast with coronal consonants, articulated with the flexible front of the tongue, and laryngeal consonants, articulated in the pharyngeal cavity.

Doubly articulated consonants are consonants with two simultaneous primary places of articulation of the same manner. They are a subset of co-articulated consonants. They are to be distinguished from co-articulated consonants with secondary articulation; that is, a second articulation not of the same manner. An example of a doubly articulated consonant is the voiceless labial-velar plosive, which is a and a pronounced simultaneously. On the other hand, the voiceless labialized velar plosive has only a single stop articulation, velar, with a simultaneous approximant-like rounding of the lips. In some dialects of Arabic, the voiceless velar fricative has a simultaneous uvular trill, but this is not considered double articulation either.

Unlike many languages, Icelandic has only very minor dialectal differences in sounds. The language has both monophthongs and diphthongs, and many consonants can be voiced or unvoiced.

Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate. Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex.

The voiceless palatal nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represent this sound are ⟨ɲ̊⟩ and ⟨ɲ̥⟩, which are combinations of the letter for the voiced palatal nasal and a diacritic indicating voicelessness. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J_0.

References

1 2 John Esling, 2010, "Phonetic Notation". In Hardcastle, Laver, & Gibbon, eds, The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences, p 693
↑ Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 153–154. ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.
↑ Recasens, Daniel. "On the articulatory classification of (alveolo)palatal consonants" . Retrieved 26 October 2021.
↑ Nikulin, Andrey (17 November 2020). "Elementos de la morfofonología del chiquitano migueleño". LIAMES: Línguas Indígenas Americanas. 20: e020015. doi: 10.20396/liames.v20i0.8660822 .
↑ Ó Sé, Diarmuid (2000), Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne (in Irish), Dublin: Institiúid Teangeolaíochta Éireann, pp. 14–15, 18, ISBN 0-946452-97-0
↑ Mhac an Fhailigh, Éamonn (1968), The Irish of Erris, Co. Mayo, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, ISBN 0-901282-02-2