Related Research Articles
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.
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.
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and the symbol for the voiced fricative is used instead. Uvular affricates can certainly be made but are rare: they occur in some southern High-German dialects, as well as in a few African and Native American languages. Uvular consonants are typically incompatible with advanced tongue root, and they often cause retraction of neighboring vowels.
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.
The voiceless velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨k⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k.
The voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages.
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ng in English sing as well as n before velar consonants as in English and ink. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ŋ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N. The IPA symbol ⟨ŋ⟩ is 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 ⟨ɲ⟩, the symbol for the palatal nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the left stem. Both the IPA symbol and the sound are commonly called 'eng' or 'engma'.
The voiced labial–palatalapproximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It has two constrictions in the vocal tract: with the tongue on the palate, and rounded at the lips. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɥ⟩, a rotated lowercase letter ⟨h⟩, or occasionally ⟨jʷ⟩, which indicates with a different kind of rounding.
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\.
The voiceless palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in some vocal languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨c⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is c.
In phonetics, alveolo-palatal 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". 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, 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. These descriptions are essentially equivalent, since the contact includes both the blade and body of the tongue. They are front enough that the fricatives and affricates are sibilants, the only sibilants among the dorsal consonants.
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.
The voiceless palatal affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represent this sound are ⟨c͡ç⟩ and ⟨c͜ç⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is c_C. The tie bar may be omitted, yielding ⟨cç⟩ in the IPA and cC in X-SAMPA.
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 velar affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound are ⟨k͡x⟩ and ⟨k͜x⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k_x. The tie bar may be omitted, yielding ⟨kx⟩ in the IPA and kx in X-SAMPA.
The voiceless or more precisely tenuis palatal click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for a tenuis palatal click with a velar rear articulation is ⟨k͡ǂ⟩ or ⟨k͜ǂ⟩, commonly abbreviated to ⟨kǂ⟩, ⟨ᵏǂ⟩ or simply ⟨ǂ⟩. Linguists who prefer the old IPA letters use the analogous Beach convention of ⟨k͡𝼋⟩ or ⟨k͜𝼋⟩, abbreviated ⟨k𝼋⟩, ⟨ᵏ𝼋⟩ or just ⟨𝼋⟩. For a click with a uvular rear articulation, the equivalents are ⟨q͡ǂ, q͜ǂ, qǂ, 𐞥ǂ⟩ and ⟨q͡𝼋, q͜𝼋, q𝼋, 𐞥𝼋⟩. Sometimes the accompanying letter comes after the click letter, e.g. ⟨ǂk⟩ or ⟨ǂᵏ⟩; this may be a simple orthographic choice, or may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases.
The voiced palatal click is a click consonant found among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for a voiced palatal click with a velar rear articulation is ⟨ɡ͡ǂ⟩ or ⟨ɡ͜ǂ⟩, commonly abbreviated to ⟨ɡǂ⟩, ⟨ᶢǂ⟩ or ⟨ǂ̬⟩. Linguists who prefer the old IPA letters use the analogous Beach convention of ⟨ɡ͡𝼋⟩ or ⟨ɡ͜𝼋⟩, abbreviated ⟨ɡ𝼋⟩, ⟨ᶢ𝼋⟩ or ⟨𝼋̬⟩. For a click with a uvular rear articulation, the equivalents are ⟨ɢ͡ǂ, ɢ͜ǂ, ɢǂ, 𐞒ǂ⟩ and ⟨ɢ͡𝼋, ɢ͜𝼋, ɢ𝼋, 𐞒𝼋⟩. Sometimes the accompanying letter comes after the click letter, e.g. ⟨ǂɡ⟩ or ⟨ǂᶢ⟩; this may be a simple orthographic choice, or it may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases.
A velar click, or more precisely a back-released velar click or back-released uvular click, is a click consonant found in paralinguistic use in languages across Africa, such as Wolof. The tongue is in a similar position to other click articulations, such as an alveolar click, and like other clicks, the airstream mechanism is lingual. However, unlike other clicks, the salient sound is produced by releasing the rear closure of the tongue rather than the front closure. Consequently, the air that fills the vacuum comes from behind the tongue, from the nasal cavity and the throat. Velar clicks are always voiceless and typically nasal, as nasal airflow is required for a reasonably loud production.
References
- Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.
