The voiceless alveolar fricatives are a type of
fricative consonant pronounced with the
tip or
blade
A blade is the portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with an edge that is designed to puncture, chop, slice or scrape surfaces or materials. Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are to be used on. Histori ...
of the tongue against 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 t ...
(gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are at least six types with significant perceptual differences:
*The
voiceless alveolar sibilant has a strong hissing sound, as the ''s'' in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
''sink''. It is one of the most common sounds in the world.
*The
voiceless denti-alveolar sibilant
The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in ''think''. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is en ...
(an ''ad hoc'' notation), also called apico-dental, has a weaker lisping sound like English ''th'' in ''thin''. It occurs in
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
dialects in southern
Spain (eastern
Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The ...
).
*The
voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant
The voiceless alveolar fricatives are a type of fricative consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are at lea ...
.html" ;"title="Voiceless alveolar fricative#Voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant">">Voiceless alveolar fricative#Voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant"> and the subform apico-alveolar , or called grave, has a weak hushing sound reminiscent of fricatives. It is used in the languages of northern
Iberia, like
Asturleonese
Asturleonese ( ast, Asturlleonés; es, Asturleonés; pt, Asturo-leonês; mwl, Asturlhionés) is a Romance language spoken primarily in northwestern Spain, namely in the historical regions and Spain's modern-day autonomous communities of Ast ...
,
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
,
Castilian Spanish
In English, Castilian Spanish can mean the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain, the standard form of Spanish, or Spanish from Spain in general. In Spanish, the term (Castilian) can either refer to the Spanish lang ...
(excluding parts of Andalusia),
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
,
Galician, and Northern
European Portuguese
European Portuguese ( pt, português europeu, ), also known as Portuguese of Portugal (Portuguese: português de Portugal), Iberian Portuguese (Portuguese: português ibérico), and Peninsular Portuguese (Portuguese: português peninsular), refer ...
. A similar retracted sibilant form is also used in
Dutch,
Icelandic, some southern dialects of
Swedish,
Finnish, and
Greek. Its sound is between and [].
*The Voiceless alveolar fricative#Voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative, voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative or , using the alveolar diacritic from the Extended IPA, is similar to the ''th'' in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
''thin''. It occurs in
Icelandic as well as an intervocalic and word-final allophone of English in dialects such as
Hiberno-English and
Scouse.
*The
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative sounds like a voiceless, strongly articulated version of English ''l'' (somewhat like what the English cluster ''**hl'' would sound like) and is written as ''ll'' in
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
.
The first three types are
sibilants, meaning that they are made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth and have a piercing, perceptually prominent sound.
Voiceless alveolar sibilant
The voiceless alveolar sibilant is a common consonant sound in vocal languages. It is the sound in English words such as ''sea'' and ''pass'', and is represented in the
International Phonetic Alphabet with . It has a characteristic high-pitched, highly perceptible hissing sound. For this reason, it is often used to get someone's attention, using a call often written as or .
The voiceless alveolar sibilant is one of the most common sounds cross-linguistically. If a language has fricatives, it will most likely have . However, some languages have a related
sibilant sound, such as , but no . In addition, sibilants are absent from
Australian Aboriginal languages
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
, in which fricatives are rare; even the few indigenous Australian languages that have fricatives do not have sibilants.
Voiceless apico-alveolar sibilant
The voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant (commonly termed the voiceless apico-alveolar sibilant) is a
fricative that is articulated with the tongue in a hollow shape, usually with the tip of the tongue (
apex
The apex is the highest point of something. The word may also refer to:
Arts and media Fictional entities
* Apex (comics), a teenaged super villainess in the Marvel Universe
* Ape-X, a super-intelligent ape in the Squadron Supreme universe
*Apex ...
) against 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 t ...
. It is a
sibilant sound and is found most notably in a number of languages in a
linguistic area covering northern and central
Iberia. It is most well known from its occurrence in the
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
of this area. In the
Middle Ages, it occurred in a wider area, covering
Romance languages spoken throughout
France,
Portugal, and
Spain, as well as
Old High German and
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. Hi ...
.
Occurrence in Europe
Modern
In Romance languages, it occurs as the normal voiceless alveolar sibilant in
Astur-Leonese
Asturleonese ( ast, Asturlleonés; es, Asturleonés; pt, Asturo-leonês; mwl, Asturlhionés) is a Romance language spoken primarily in northwestern Spain, namely in the historical regions and Spain's modern-day autonomous communities of Astu ...
,
Castilian Spanish
In English, Castilian Spanish can mean the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain, the standard form of Spanish, or Spanish from Spain in general. In Spanish, the term (Castilian) can either refer to the Spanish lang ...
,
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
,
Galician, northern European
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
, and some
Occitan dialects. It also occurs in
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
and
Mirandese
The Mirandese language ( mwl, mirandés, links=no or ''lhéngua mirandesa''; pt, mirandês or ) is an Astur-Leonese language or language variety that is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal in Terra de Miranda (made up of ...
, where it is opposed to a different voiceless alveolar sibilant, the more common ; the same distinction occurs in a few dialects of northeastern Portuguese. Outside this area, it also occurs in a few dialects of Latin American Spanish (e.g.
Antioqueño and
Pastuso, in
Colombia).
Amongst
Germanic languages, it occurs in
Dutch (and closely related
Low German),
Icelandic, many dialects in
Scandinavia, and working-class
Glaswegian English.
It also occurs in
Modern Greek (with a articulation), as well as the
Baltic languages
The Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 4.5 million people mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. Together with the Slavic lan ...
.
There is no single
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners A ...
symbol used for this sound. The symbol is often used, with a diacritic indicating an pronunciation. However, that is potentially problematic in that not all alveolar retracted sibilants are apical (see below), and not all apical alveolar sibilants are retracted. The ad hoc non-IPA symbols and are often used in the linguistic literature even when IPA symbols are used for other sounds, but is a common transcription of the retroflex sibilant .
Medieval
In medieval times, it occurred in a wider area, including the
Romance languages spoken in most or all of
France and
Iberia (
Old Spanish,
Galician-Portuguese
Galician-Portuguese ( gl, galego-portugués or ', pt, galego-português or ), also known as Old Portuguese or as Medieval Galician when referring to the history of each modern language, was a West Iberian Romance language spoken in the Middle ...
,
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
,
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, etc.), as well as in the
Old
Old or OLD may refer to:
Places
*Old, Baranya, Hungary
*Old, Northamptonshire, England
* Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD)
*OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, M ...
and
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. Hi ...
of central and southern
Germany, and most likely Northern Germany as well. In all of these languages, the retracted "apico-alveolar" sibilant was opposed to a non-retracted sibilant much like modern English , and in many of them, both voiceless and voiced versions of both sounds occurred. A solid type of evidence consists of different spellings used for two different sibilants: in general, the retracted "apico-alveolar" variants were written or , while the non-retracted variants were written , or . In the Romance languages, the retracted sibilants derived from Latin , or , while the non-retracted sibilants derived from earlier
affricate
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair ...
s and , which in turn derived from palatalized or . The situation was similar in
High German
The High German dialects (german: hochdeutsche Mundarten), or simply High German (); not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called ''High German'', comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath an ...
, where the retracted sibilants derived largely from Proto-Germanic , while the non-retracted sibilants derived from instances of Proto-Germanic that were shifted by the
High German sound shift. Minimal pairs were common in all languages. Examples in Middle High German, for example, were "to know" (
Old English , cf. "to wit") vs. "known" (Old English ), and "white" (Old English ) vs. "way" (Old English , cf. "-wise").
Description of the retracted sibilant
Often, to speakers of languages or dialects that do not have the sound, it is said to have a "whistling" quality, and to sound similar to
palato-alveolar . For this reason, when borrowed into such languages or represented with non-Latin characters, it is often replaced with . This occurred, for example, in English borrowings from
Old French (e.g. ''push'' from ''pousser'', ''cash'' from ''caisse''); in
Polish borrowings from medieval German (e.g. from ''kosten'', from ''sūr'' (contemporary )); and in representations of
Mozarabic
Mozarabic, also called Andalusi Romance, refers to the medieval Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula in territories controlled by the Islamic Emirate of Córdoba and its successors. They were the common tongue for the majority of ...
(an extinct medieval
Romance language once spoken in southern Spain) in Arabic characters. The similarity between retracted and has resulted in many exchanges in Spanish between the sounds, during the medieval period when Spanish had both phonemes. Examples are (formerly ''xabón'') "soap" from Latin /, "cuttlefish" (formerly ''xibia'') from Latin , and "scissors" (earlier < medieval ''tiseras'') from Latin (with initial ''t-'' due to influence from "shaver").
One of the clearest descriptions of this sound is from Obaid: "There is a Castilian ''s'', which is a voiceless, concave, apicoalveolar fricative: The tip of the tongue turned upward forms a narrow opening against the alveoli of the upper incisors. It resembles a faint and is found throughout much of the northern half of Spain".
Many dialects of
Modern Greek have a very similar-sounding sibilant that is pronounced with a articulation.
Loss of the voiceless alveolar sibilant
This distinction has since vanished from most of the languages that once had it in medieval times.
* In most dialects of Spanish, the four alveolar sibilants have merged into the non-retracted () while distinguish in spelling.
* In French and most dialects of Portuguese, the four alveolar sibilants have merged into non-retracted and , while in European Portuguese, most other Old World Portuguese variants and some recently European-influenced dialects of Brazil all instances of coda , voiced before voiced consonants, were backed to , while in most of Brazilian Portuguese this phenomenon is much rarer, being essentially absent in the dialects that had a greater indigenous and/or non-Portuguese European influence.
* In the remaining dialects of Portuguese, found in northern Portugal, they merged into the retracted , or, as in
Mirandese
The Mirandese language ( mwl, mirandés, links=no or ''lhéngua mirandesa''; pt, mirandês or ) is an Astur-Leonese language or language variety that is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal in Terra de Miranda (made up of ...
(which is, however, not a Portuguese dialect, but belongs to
Asturian-Leonese), conserved the medieval distinction.
* In central and northern Spanish, the non-retracted was fronted to after merging with non-retracted , while the retracted remains ().
* In
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
, was early on voiced to in prevocalic position. This sound was then fronted to , but did not merge with any other sound (except that it was later re-devoiced in some southern dialects). In pre-consonantal and final position, merged with either or . The rules for these mergers differ between dialects. In Standard German, is used stem-initially and sporadically after ‹r›. Especially in
Alemannic, every pre-consonantal became .
Loss-causing events
Those languages in which the sound occurs typically did not have a phonological process from which either or appeared, two similar sounds with which ⟨s̺⟩ was eventually confused. In general, older European languages only had a single pronunciation of s.
In Romance languages, was reached from -ti-, -ci-, -ce- (, , ) clusters that eventually became , , and later , , (as in Latin ''fortia'' "force", ''civitas'' "city", ''centum'' "hundred"), while was reached:
* From a or cluster in southern Romance, as in Latin ''miscere'' > Portuguese ''mexer'' "to move", Latin ''fluxus'' > Spanish ''flojo'' "lax", Latin ''crescere'' > Italian ''crescere'' "grow", with a different pronunciation.
* from a deaffricated in Northern France and southern-central Portugal, as in French ''chat'' "cat", Portuguese ''achar'' "find".
In
High German
The High German dialects (german: hochdeutsche Mundarten), or simply High German (); not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called ''High German'', comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath an ...
, was reached through a > > process, as in German ''Wasser'' compared to English ''water''. In English, the same process of Romance > occurred in
Norman-imported words, accounting for modern homophones ''sell'' and ''cell''. was also reached from a -sk- cluster reduction as in Romance, e.g.
Old English spelling ''asc'' for modern ''ash'', German ''schiff'' and English ''ship'' compared to Danish ''skib''.
Exceptions
Standard Modern Greek, which has apical , lacked both processes.
The Germanic-speaking regions that did not have either phenomenon have normally preserved the apical , that is, Icelandic,
Dutch and many
Scandinavian lects. It is also found in a minority of
Low German dialects.
The main Romance language to preserve the sound,
Castilian Spanish
In English, Castilian Spanish can mean the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain, the standard form of Spanish, or Spanish from Spain in general. In Spanish, the term (Castilian) can either refer to the Spanish lang ...
, is exceptional in that it had both events that produced and , and preserved the apical S at the expense of both, that were shifted farther away.
Galician,
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
and
Ladino changed only .
Reach in ancient times
Because of the widespread medieval distribution, it has been speculated that retracted was the normal pronunciation in spoken
Latin. Certain borrowings suggest that it was not far off from the sh-sound , e.g.
Aramaic ''Jeshua'' >
Greek ''Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs)'' > Latin ''Jesus'',
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
''Shabbat'' > Latin ''sabbatum''; but this could also be explained by the lack of a better sound in Latin to represent
Semitic ''š''. It equally well could have been an areal feature inherited from the prehistoric languages of Western Europe, as evidenced by its occurrence in modern
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
.
For the same reasons, it can be speculated that retracted was the pronunciation of
Proto-Germanic s. Its presence in many branches of
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
and its presence particularly in the more conservative languages inside each branch (e.g. Icelandic, Spanish), as well as being found in disparate areas, such as the
Baltic languages
The Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 4.5 million people mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. Together with the Slavic lan ...
and
Greece, suggests it could have ultimately been the main allophone of
Proto-Indo-European s, known for ranging from to as far as .
, but not , was developed in
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional It ...
. However, where Spanish and Catalan have apical , Italian uses the same laminal that occurs in standard forms of English: evidence, it could be argued, that S was not pronounced apically in Latin. But
Neapolitan
Neapolitan means of or pertaining to Naples, a city in Italy; or to:
Geography and history
* Province of Naples, a province in the Campania region of southern Italy that includes the city
* Duchy of Naples, in existence during the Early and Hig ...
has a medieval S becoming either or depending on context, much as in
European Portuguese
European Portuguese ( pt, português europeu, ), also known as Portuguese of Portugal (Portuguese: português de Portugal), Iberian Portuguese (Portuguese: português ibérico), and Peninsular Portuguese (Portuguese: português peninsular), refer ...
, which could attest to the previous existence of in the
Italian Peninsula. The Italian pronunciation as laminal S could also be explained by the presence of but not , thus moving the pronunciation of to the front of the mouth in an attempt to better differentiate between the two sounds.
Voiceless lamino-dental sibilant
A voiceless laminal dental or
dentialveolar sibilant contrasts with a voiceless apical alveolar or post-alveolar sibilant in
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
and several languages of California, including
Luiseño of the Uto-Aztecan family and
Kumeyaay of the Yuman family.
Comparison between English and Spanish
The term "voiceless alveolar sibilant" is potentially ambiguous in that it can refer to at least two different sounds. Various languages of northern
Iberia (e.g.,
Astur-Leonese
Asturleonese ( ast, Asturlleonés; es, Asturleonés; pt, Asturo-leonês; mwl, Asturlhionés) is a Romance language spoken primarily in northwestern Spain, namely in the historical regions and Spain's modern-day autonomous communities of Astu ...
,
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
,
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
,
Galician,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
and
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
) have a so-called "
voiceless apico-alveolar sibilant
The voiceless alveolar fricatives are a type of fricative consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are at lea ...
" that lacks the strong hissing of the described in this article but has a duller, more "grave" sound quality somewhat reminiscent of a
voiceless retroflex sibilant
The voiceless retroflex sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is which is a Latin letter s combined with a retroflex h ...
. Basque,
Mirandese
The Mirandese language ( mwl, mirandés, links=no or ''lhéngua mirandesa''; pt, mirandês or ) is an Astur-Leonese language or language variety that is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal in Terra de Miranda (made up of ...
and some Portuguese dialects in northeast Portugal (as well as medieval Spanish and Portuguese in general) have both types of sounds in the same language.
There is no general agreement about what actual feature distinguishes these sounds. Spanish phoneticians normally describe the difference as (for the northern Iberian sound) vs. (for the more common sound), but Ladefoged and Maddieson claim that English can be pronounced apically, which is evidently not the same as the apical sibilant of Iberian Spanish and Basque. Also, Adams asserts that many dialects of
Modern Greek have a laminal sibilant with a sound quality similar to the "apico-alveolar" sibilant of northern Iberia.
Some authors have instead suggested that the difference lies in
tongue shape
In linguistics, specifically articulatory phonetics, tongue shape describes the shape that the tongue assumes when it makes a sound. Because the sibilant sounds have such a high perceptual prominence, tongue shape is particularly important; smal ...
. Adams describes the northern Iberian sibilant as "retracted". Ladefoged and Maddieson appear to characterize the more common hissing variant as ', and some phoneticians (such as J. Catford) have characterized it as ''
sulcal'' (which is more or less a synonym of "grooved"), but in both cases, there is some doubt about whether all and only the "hissing" sounds actually have a "grooved" or "sulcal" tongue shape.
Features
Features of the voiceless alveolar sibilant:
* There are at least three specific variants of :
** Dentalized laminal
alveolar (commonly called "dental"), which means it is articulated with the tongue blade very close to the upper front teeth, with the tongue tip resting behind lower front teeth. The hissing effect in this variety of is very strong.
[, cited in ]
** Non-retracted alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at 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 t ...
, termed respectively ''
apical
Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to:
*Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology)
*Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...
'' and ''
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
''. According to about half of
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
speakers use a non-retracted apical articulation.
** Retracted alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue slightly behind the alveolar ridge, termed respectively ''apical'' and ''laminal''. Acoustically, it is close to laminal or (to a lesser extent) .
Examples
Dentalized laminal alveolar
Non-retracted alveolar
Retracted alveolar
Variable
Voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative
The voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative (also known as a "slit" fricative) is a consonantal sound. As the
International Phonetic Alphabet does not have separate symbols for the alveolar consonants (the same symbol is used for all
coronal places of articulation that are not
palatalized), this sound is usually transcribed , occasionally (
retracted or alveolarized , respectively), (constricted voiceless ), or (lowered ).
Some scholars also posit the voiceless alveolar approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as .
Few languages also have the voiceless alveolar tapped fricative, which is simply a very brief apical alveolar non-sibilant fricative, with the tongue making the gesture for a tapped stop but not making full contact. This can be indicated in the IPA with the lowering diacritic to show full occlusion did not occur.
Tapped fricatives are occasionally reported in the literature, though these claims are not generally independently confirmed and so remain dubious.
''Flapped'' fricatives are theoretically possible but are not attested.
Features
However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
Occurrence
See also
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Voiceless corono-dentoalveolar sibilant
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Tongue shape
In linguistics, specifically articulatory phonetics, tongue shape describes the shape that the tongue assumes when it makes a sound. Because the sibilant sounds have such a high perceptual prominence, tongue shape is particularly important; smal ...
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Apical consonant
An apical consonant is a phone (speech sound) 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 conson ...
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Laminal consonant
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Index of phonetics articles
A
* Acoustic phonetics
* Active articulator
* Affricate
* Airstream mechanism
* Alexander John Ellis
* Alexander Melville Bell
* Alfred C. Gimson
* Allophone
* Alveolar approximant ()
* Alveolar click ()
* Alveolar consonant
* Alveolar ejec ...
Notes
References
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External links
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{{Authority control
Alveolar consonants
Fricative consonants
Voiceless oral consonants
Central consonants
Pulmonic consonants