The voiceless palatal plosive or stop is a type of

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced ...

al sound used in some vocal languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent

X-SAMPA The Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (X-SAMPA) is a variant of SAMPA developed in 1995 by John C. Wells, professor of phonetics at University College London. It is designed to unify the individual language SAMPA alphabets, a ...

symbol is c. If distinction is necessary, the voiceless alveolo-palatal plosive may be transcribed as ( advanced ) or ( retracted and palatalized ), but these are essentially equivalent, because the contact includes both the blade and body (but not the tip) of the tongue. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are c_+ and t_-' or t_-_j, respectively. There is also a non-IPA letter ("t", plus the curl found in the symbols for alveolo-palatal sibilant fricatives ), used especially in sinological circles. It is common for the phonetic symbol to be used to represent

voiceless postalveolar affricate The voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant affricate or voiceless domed postalveolar sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with , (formerly ...

or other similar

affricates An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop consonant, stop and releases as a fricative consonant, fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal consonant, coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop a ...

, for example in the

Indic languages Indic languages may refer to: * Indo-Aryan languages, a subgroup of the Indo-European languages spoken mainly in the north of the Indian subcontinent * Languages of the Indian subcontinent, all the indigenous languages of the region regardless of la ...

. This may be considered appropriate when the place of articulation needs to be specified and the distinction between plosive and affricate is not contrastive. There is also the voiceless post-palatal plosiveInstead of "post-palatal", it can be called "retracted palatal", "backed palatal", "palato-velar", "pre-velar", "advanced velar", "fronted velar" or "front-velar". For simplicity, this article uses only the term "post-palatal". in some languages, which is articulated slightly more back compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical palatal consonant, though not as back as the prototypical

velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive ...

. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as (retracted ) or (advanced ). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are c_- and k_+, respectively. Especially in

broad transcription Phonetic transcription (also known as phonetic script or phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phones'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the I ...

, the voiceless post-palatal plosive may be transcribed as a palatalized voiceless velar plosive ( in the IPA, k' or k_j in X-SAMPA).

Features

Features of the voiceless palatal stop: ** The otherwise identical post-palatal variant is articulated slightly behind the hard palate, making it sound closer to the velar . ** Alveolo-palatal variant is articulated also with the blade of the tongue at or behind the

alveolar ridge The alveolar process () or alveolar bone is the thickened ridge of bone that contains the tooth sockets on the jaw bones (in humans, the maxilla and the mandible). The structures are covered by gums as part of the oral cavity. The synonymous ...

Occurrence

Palatal or alveolo-palatal

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Post-palatal

Notes

References

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External links

* {{IPA navigation Palatal consonants Voiceless stops Central consonants Pulmonic consonants