Emphatic consonant

Last updated December 16, 2024

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 Semitic linguistics, an emphatic consonant is an obstruent consonant which originally contrasted, and often still contrasts, with an analogous voiced or voiceless obstruent by means of a secondary articulation. In specific Semitic languages, the members of the emphatic series may be realized as uvularized, pharyngealized, velarized or ejective, or by plain voicing contrast; for instance, in Arabic, emphasis involves retraction of the dorsum (or root) of the tongue, which has variously been described as velarization or pharyngealization depending on where the locus of the retraction is assumed to be. The term is also used, to a lesser extent, to describe cognate series in other Afro-Asiatic languages, where they are typically realized as ejective, implosive or pharyngealized consonants.

In Semitic studies, emphatic consonants are commonly transcribed using the convention of placing a dot under the closest plain consonant in the Latin alphabet. However, exceptions exist: original emphatic k developed into /q/ in most Semitic languages; strictly speaking, it has thus ceased to be an emphatic version of k and has become a different consonant, being most commonly transcribed as q (rather than ḳ) accordingly.

Within Arabic, the four emphatic consonants (Arabic : حروف الإطباق, romanized: ḥurūf al-ʾiṭbāq) may vary in phonetic realization from dialect to dialect, but they are typically realized as pharyngealized consonants. In Ethiopian Semitic and Modern South Arabian languages, they are realized as ejective consonants. While these sounds do not necessarily share any particular phonetic properties in common, most historically derive from a common source.

Five such "emphatic" phonemes are reconstructed for Proto-Semitic:

Proto-Semitic			Arabic		Geʽez	Aramaic	Hebrew
Phoneme description	IPA	Trans.	IPA	Letter/phoneme name
Alveolar ejective	[ tʼ ]	ṭ	[ tˤ ]	Ṭāʼ ط	Ṭäyt ጠ	Teth ט	Tet ט
Dental ejective fricative	[ θʼ ]	ṯ̣	[ ðˤ ]	Ẓāʾ ظ	Ṣädäy ጸ	Teth ט	Tsadi צ
Alveolar ejective fricative or affricate	[ tsʼ ]/[ sʼ ]	ṣ	[ sˤ ]	Ṣād ص	Ṣädäy ጸ	Ṣade צ
Alveolar lateral ejective fricative or affricate	[ ɬʼ ]/[ tɬʼ ]	ṣ́	[ dˤ ]	Ḍād ض	Ṣ́äppä ፀ	Ayin ע
Velar ejective	[ kʼ ]	ḳ	[ q ]*	Qāf ق	Ḳaf ቀ	Qoph ק	Qof ק

An extra emphatic labial *ṗጰ occurs in some Semitic languages, but it is unclear whether it was a phoneme in Proto-Semitic.

The classical Ethiopian Semitic language Geʽez is unique among Semitic languages for contrasting all three of /f/, /p/, and /pʼ/. While /p/ and /pʼ/ occur mostly in loanwords (especially from Greek), there are many other occurrences whose origin is less clear (such as hepʼä 'strike', häppälä 'wash clothes').^[1]
According to Hetzron, Hebrew developed^{[ when? ]} an emphatic labial phoneme ṗ to represent unaspirated /p/ from Persian and Greek; this phoneme is not attested in Hebrew orthography.^[2]

In Arabic قqāf[q] is not considered an emphatic consonant or part of حروف الإطباق⁩ḥurūf al-ʾiṭbāq. In several Arabic dialects, especially those of the Hejaz and Najd, the hypothesized emphatic [ kʼ ] developed into a plain [ ɡ ]. This form of pronunciation is quite old and probably existed already at the beginning of the Islamic conquests.

General Modern Israeli Hebrew and Maltese are notable exceptions among Semitic languages to the presence of emphatic consonants. In both languages, they have been lost under the influence of Indo-European languages (chiefly Yiddish and Sicilian, respectively, though other languages may also have had an influence; see revival of the Hebrew language).

In Hebrew, the letter tsadi (from Proto-Semitic ṯ̣, ṣ, ṣ́) remains distinct, but has been replaced by a non-pharygealized affricate /ts/. Emphatic ḳ has been merged with plain k in non-lenited positions, but remains distinct post-vocally, where the plain consonant becomes /x/ (phonetically [ χ ]), while the original emphatic does not. Semitic ṭ has been fully merged with plain t.
In Maltese, only emphatic ḳ (spelled q) remains distinct. It is still realised as a uvular stop [ q ] in a few villages but has otherwise developed into a glottal consonant stop [ ʔ ]. All other emphatics have been merged into plain consonants. However, they are often still recognizable from special vocalic developments that they triggered before the mergers: compare sejf ('sword', from Arabic سَيْف⁩sayf) with sajf ('summer', from Arabic صَيْف⁩ṣayf). The emphatic ṣ prevented the a from being raised to e as it did with the plain s).

Related Research Articles

Modern Hebrew has 25 to 27 consonants and 5 vowels, depending on the speaker and the analysis.

A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English L, as in Larry. Lateral consonants contrast with central consonants, in which the airstream flows through the center of the mouth.

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.

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.

Guttural speech sounds are those with a primary place of articulation near the back of the oral cavity, where it is difficult to distinguish a sound's place of articulation and its phonation. In popular usage it is an imprecise term for sounds produced relatively far back in the vocal tract, such as the German ch or the Arabic ayin, but not simple glottal sounds like h. The term 'guttural language' is used for languages that have such sounds.

A labialized velar or labiovelar is a velar consonant that is labialized, with a -like secondary articulation. Examples are, which are pronounced like a, with rounded lips, such as the labialized voiceless velar plosive and labialized voiced velar plosive, obstruents being common among the sounds that undergo labialization.

<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.

Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they are called rounded.

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.

While many languages have numerous dialects that differ in phonology, contemporary spoken Arabic is more properly described as a continuum of varieties. This article deals primarily with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is the standard variety shared by educated speakers throughout Arabic-speaking regions. MSA is used in writing in formal print media and orally in newscasts, speeches and formal declarations of numerous types.

Gulf Arabic or Khaleeji is a variety of the Arabic language spoken in Eastern Arabia around the coasts of the Persian Gulf in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, southern Iraq, eastern Saudi Arabia, northern Oman, and by some Iranian Arabs.

Tsade is the eighteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Arabic ṣādص‎, Aramaic ṣāḏē 𐡑, Ge'ez ṣädäy ጸ, Hebrew ṣādīצ‎, Phoenician ṣādē 𐤑, and Syriac ṣāḏē ܨ. Its oldest phonetic value is debated, although there is a variety of pronunciations in different modern Semitic languages and their dialects. It represents the coalescence of three Proto-Semitic "emphatic consonants" in Canaanite. Arabic, which kept the phonemes separate, introduced variants of ṣād and ṭāʾ to express the three. In Aramaic, these emphatic consonants coalesced instead with ʿayin and ṭēt, respectively, thus Hebrew ereṣ ארץ (earth) is araʿארע‎ in Aramaic.

Proto-Semitic is the reconstructed proto-language common ancestor to the Semitic language family. There is no consensus regarding the location of the Proto-Semitic Urheimat: scholars hypothesize that it may have originated in the Levant, the Sahara, the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, or northern Africa.

Velarization or velarisation is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four diacritics:

Mehri or Mahri (مهريّت) [Roman Transliteration: Mahrīyyt] is the most spoken of the Modern South Arabian languages (MSALs), a subgroup of the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic family. It is spoken by the Mehri tribes, who inhabit isolated areas of the eastern part of Yemen, western Oman, particularly the Al Mahrah Governorate, with a small number in Saudi Arabia near the Yemeni and Omani borders. Up to the 19th century, speakers lived as far north as the central part of Oman.

Ḍād (ﺽ) is the fifteenth letter of the Arabic alphabet, one of the six letters not in the twenty-two akin to the Phoenician alphabet. In name and shape, it is a variant of ṣād. Its numerical value is 800.

Baghdadi Arabic is the Arabic dialect spoken in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. During the 20th century, Baghdadi Arabic has become the lingua franca of Iraq, and the language of commerce and education. It is considered a subset of Iraqi Arabic.

Adyghe is a language of the Northwest Caucasian family which, like the other Northwest Caucasian languages, is very rich in consonants, featuring many labialized and ejective consonants. Adyghe is phonologically more complex than Kabardian, having the retroflex consonants and their labialized forms.

Kurdish phonology is the sound system of the Kurdish dialect continuum. This article includes the phonology of the three Kurdish languages in their respective standard descriptions. Phonological features include the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops, and the large phoneme inventories.

Comparative work of the Afroasiatic languages uses a semi-conventionalized set of symbols that are somewhat different than the International Phonetic Alphabet and other phonetic notations. The more salient differences include the letters ⟨c, ʒ⟩ for IPA, the circumflex diacritic ⟨◌̂⟩ for lateral obstruents, and the sub-dot ⟨◌̣⟩ for emphatic consonants, which depending on the language may be ejective, implosive or pharyngealized.

References

↑ Woodard, Roger D. (2008). Woodard, Roger D. (ed.). The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Cambridge University Press. p. 219. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511486845. ISBN 978-0-521-68496-5.
↑ Hetzron, Robert (1997). The Semitic languages. Routledge. p. 147. ISBN 9780415412667.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Woodard, Roger D. (2008). Woodard, Roger D. (ed.). The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Cambridge University Press. p. 219. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511486845. ISBN 978-0-521-68496-5.

[2] Hetzron, Robert (1997). The Semitic languages. Routledge. p. 147. ISBN 9780415412667.

[1]

[2]