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In phonetics, advanced tongue root (ATR) and retracted tongue root (RTR) are contrasting states of the root of the tongue during the pronunciation of vowels in some languages, especially in Western and Eastern Africa, but also in
Kazakh Kazakh, Qazaq or Kazakhstani may refer to: * Someone or something related to Kazakhstan *Kazakhs, an ethnic group *Kazakh language *The Kazakh Khanate * Kazakh cuisine * Qazakh Rayon, Azerbaijan *Qazax, Azerbaijan *Kazakh Uyezd, administrative dis ...
and Mongolian. ATR vs RTR was once suggested to be the basis for the distinction between tense and lax vowels in European languages such as German, but that no longer seems tenable.


Advanced tongue root

Advanced tongue root, abbreviated ATR or +ATR, also called expanded, involves the expansion of the pharyngeal cavity by moving the base of the tongue forward and often lowering the
larynx The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal inlet is about ...
during the pronunciation of a vowel. The lowering of the larynx sometimes adds a breathy quality to the vowel. Voiced
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such as can often involve non-contrastive tongue root advancement whose results can be seen occasionally in sound changes relating stop voicing and vowel frontness such as voicing stop consonants before
front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherw ...
s in the Oghuz Turkic languages or in Adjarian's law: the fronting of vowels after voiced stops in certain dialects of Armenian. True uvular consonants appear to be incompatible with advanced tongue root, i.e. they are inherently minus;ATR Combined with the above tendency for voiced stops to be ATR that motivates the extreme rarity of the voiced uvular stop compared to its voiceless counterpart . The
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
represents ATR with a "left tack"
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
, . In languages in which they occur, advanced-tongue-root vowels very often contrast with retracted tongue root (RTR) vowels in a system of
vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
, which occurs commonly in large parts of West Africa. ATR vowels involve a certain tension in the tongue, often in the lips and jaw as well; the ear can often perceive this tension as a "brightness" (narrow formants) compared to RTR vowels. Nonetheless, phoneticians do not refer to ATR vowels as ''tense vowels'' since the word '' tense'' already has several meanings in European phonetics.


Retracted tongue root

Retracted tongue root, abbreviated RTR, is the retraction of the base of the tongue in the pharynx during the pronunciation of a vowel, the opposite articulation of advanced tongue root. This type of vowel has also been referred to as pharyngealized. The neutral position of the tongue during the pronunciation of a vowel, contrasting with advanced tongue root and thus marked -ATR, is also sometimes referred to as retracted tongue root. The diacritic for RTR in the
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
is the right tack, .


Tongue root position and vowel harmony

As mentioned above, many African languages, such as Maasai, have systems of
vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
based on tongue root position. That is illustrated here with the Fante dialect of Akan, which has fifteen vowels: five +ATR vowels, five −ATR vowels, and five
nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced wit ...
s. : There are two harmonization rules that govern the vowels that may co-occur in a word: #All −ATR vowels become +ATR when followed by a peripheral +ATR vowel (). That is, orthographic ''e ɛ a ɔ o'' become ''i e a o u'' before ''i u'' and sometimes before ''a.'' #As long as it does not conflict with the previous rule, the +ATR mid vowels () become −ATR high vowels () when preceded by a −ATR non-high vowel (). (It is not reflected in the orthography; underlying and surface vowels are both spelled ''e o.'') In the Twi language, the ±ATR distinction has merged in the
low vowel An open vowel is a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels (in U.S. terminology ) in reference to the low position of the tongue. In the cont ...
and so is harmonically neutral, occurring with either set of vowels. In addition, the two vowels written ''e'' ( and ) and ''o'' ( and ) are often not distinguished and are approximately equivalent to European and , as reflected in the orthography; for such people, the second harmonization rule does not apply.


Tongue root and phonation

With advances in fiber-optic laryngoscopy at the end of the twentieth century, new types of
phonation The term phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, ''phonation'' is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the defini ...
were discovered that involve more of the
larynx The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal inlet is about ...
than just the
glottis The glottis is the opening between the vocal folds (the rima glottidis). The glottis is crucial in producing vowels and voiced consonants. Etymology From Ancient Greek ''γλωττίς'' (glōttís), derived from ''γλῶττα'' (glôtta), va ...
. One of the few languages studied thus far, the
Togolese Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...
language Kabiyé, has a vocalic distinction that had been assumed to be one of tongue root. However, it turned out to be a phonation distinction of faucalized voice versus harsh voice. It is not yet clear whether that is characteristic of ±ATR distinctions in general.


Additional images

File:Slide1lll.JPG, Tongue root File:Slide1mmm.JPG, Tongue root File:Slide7sss.JPG, tongue root File:Slide17sss.JPG, tongue root File:Slide3ttt.JPG, tongue root File:Slide5uuu.JPG, tongue root File:Slide11vvv.JPG, tongue root


See also

* The back-vowel constraint, an effect of tongue-root retraction in some click consonants.


References


Sources

* {{cite book , last1 =Ladefoged , first1 =Peter , last2 =Maddieson , first2 =Ian , title =The Sounds of the World's Languages , year =1996 , publisher =Blackwell , location =Oxford , isbn =


External links


Maasai Vowels
with audio examples of ATRand ATR Vowels