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Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex.
The most common type of palatal consonant is the extremely common approximant [j], which ranks among the ten most common sounds in the world's languages. [1] The nasal [ɲ] is also common, occurring in around 35 percent of the world's languages, [2] in most of which its equivalent obstruent is not the stop [c], but the affricate [ t͡ʃ ]. Only a few languages in northern Eurasia, the Americas and central Africa contrast palatal stops with postalveolar affricates—as in Hungarian, Czech, Latvian, Macedonian, Slovak, Turkish and Albanian.
Consonants with other primary articulations may be palatalized , that is, accompanied by the raising of the tongue surface towards the hard palate. For example, English [ʃ] (spelled sh) has such a palatal component, although its primary articulation involves the tip of the tongue and the upper gum (this type of articulation is called palatoalveolar).
In phonology, alveolo-palatal, palatoalveolar and palatovelar consonants are commonly grouped as palatals, since these categories rarely contrast with true palatals. Sometimes palatalized alveolars or dentals can be analyzed in this manner as well.
Palatal consonants can be distinguished from apical palatalized consonants and consonant clusters of a consonant and the palatal approximant [j]. The common laminal "palatalized" alveolars, which also contrast with palatals, have a unique place of articulation and should be called alveolo-palatal consonants. Palatal consonants have their primary articulation toward or in contact with the hard palate, whereas palatalized consonants have a primary articulation in some other area and a secondary articulation involving movement towards the hard palate. Palatal and palatalized consonants are both single phonemes, whereas a sequence of a consonant and [j] is logically two phonemes. However, (post)palatal consonants in general do not contrast with palatalized velars, which in theory have slightly wider place of articulation than postpalatals. [3]
Irish distinguishes the dorsal palatal nasal /ɲ/ (slender ng) from both the laminal alveolo-palatal nasal ("fortis") /ȵ/ (slender nn) and the apical palatalized alveolar nasal ("lenis") /nʲ/ (slender n), nonetheless most modern Irish speakers may either merge the latter two or depalatalize the apical palatalized consonant. So is the difference between the two Migueleño Chiquitano stops. In both languages alveolo-palatal consonants correspond to the palatalization or slender of alveolars while palatal consonants correspond to the palatalization or slender of velars.
Spanish marginally distinguishes palatal consonants from sequences of a dental and the palatal approximant, e.g. in lleísmo Spanish the laterals ll (/l̠ʲ/→ʎ) and ly (/lj/→lɟʝ), and for all Spanish speakers, in the case of nasals:
So is the difference between Russian clusters ня and нъя (the Russian palatal approximant never becomes [ɟʝ]). However, phonetically speaking, the Spanish one is simultaneous alveolo-palatal and dento-alveolar or dento-alveolo-palatal [4] while the Russian soft one is alveolopalatal laminal (except for /rʲ/ which is apical with a secondary articulation). Neither are true palatals like the Irish one.
Sometimes the term palatal is used imprecisely to mean "palatalized". Also, languages that have sequences of consonants and /j/, but no separate palatal or palatalized consonants (e.g. English), will often pronounce the sequence with /j/ as a single palatal or palatalized consonant. This is due to the principle of least effort and is an example of the general phenomenon of coarticulation. (On the other hand, Spanish speakers can be careful to pronounce /nj/ as two separate sounds to avoid possible confusion with /ɲ/.)
For a table of examples of palatal /ɲʎ/ in the Romance languages, see Palatalization (sound change) § Mouillé.
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.
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, previously called point-and-blade consonants, 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.
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated with the tip of the tongue, as in English, or with the flat of the tongue just above the tip, as in French and Spanish.
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.
Postalveolar (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.
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 alveolar and dental ejective stops are types of consonantal sounds, usually described as voiceless, that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ejectives are indicated with a "modifier letter apostrophe" ⟨ʼ⟩, as in this article. A reversed apostrophe is sometimes used to represent light aspiration, as in Armenian linguistics ⟨p‘ t‘ k‘⟩; this usage is obsolete in the IPA. In other transcription traditions, the apostrophe represents palatalization: ⟨pʼ⟩ = IPA ⟨pʲ⟩. In some Americanist traditions, an apostrophe indicates weak ejection and an exclamation mark strong ejection: ⟨k̓, k!⟩. In the IPA, the distinction might be written ⟨kʼ, kʼʼ⟩, but it seems that no language distinguishes degrees of ejection.
The voiced retroflex lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɭ ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is l`.
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 retroflex nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɳ ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n`.
The voiced palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound in some spoken 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 voiced retroflex plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɖ ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d`. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of a d, the letter that is used for the corresponding alveolar consonant. Many South Asian languages, such as Hindi and Urdu, have a two-way contrast between plain and murmured.
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, 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.
In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.
An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the tip of the tongue (apex) in conjunction with upper articulators from lips to postalveolar, and possibly prepalatal. It contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue, just behind the tip. Sometimes apical is used exclusively for an articulation that involves only the tip of the tongue and apicolaminal for an articulation that involves both the tip and the blade of the tongue. However, the distinction is not always made and the latter one may be called simply apical, especially when describing an apical dental articulation. As there is some laminal contact in the alveolar region, the apicolaminal dental consonants are also labelled as denti-alveolar.
The voiceless retroflex lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The 'implicit' IPA letter for this sound, ⟨ꞎ⟩, is overtly supported by the extIPA.
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.
