Retroflex trill
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The voiced retroflex trill is a sound that has been reported in Toda and confirmed with laboratory measurements.
Peter Ladefoged Peter Nielsen Ladefoged ( , ; 17 September 1925 – 24 January 2006) was a British linguist and phonetician. He was Professor of Phonetics at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he taught from 1962 to 1991. His book ''A Course ...
transcribes it with the IPA symbol that is normally associated with the
retroflex flap The voiced retroflex flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r`. Features Features of the voiced ...
, . Although the tongue starts out in a subapical retroflex position, trilling involves the tip of the tongue and causes it to move forward to the alveolar ridge. Thus, the retroflex trill gives a preceding vowel retroflex coloration, like other retroflex consonants, but the vibration itself is not much different from an
alveolar trill The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. ...
. Thus, the narrower transcription is also appropriate. Wahgi has a similar trilled allophone of its lateral flap, , but it is voiceless.
Wintu The Wintu (also Northern Wintun) are Native Americans who live in what is now Northern California. They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun (or Wintuan). Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin. The Wintu ...
and Lardil are other languages with a reported (apico-)retroflex trill where the tongue apex "approaches" the hard palate, but it is not subapical, unlike in Toda. The trill has a retroflex flap allophone that occurs between vowels. Several languages have been reported to have trilled retroflex affricates such as and , including
Mapudungun Mapuche (, Mapuche & Spanish: , or Mapudungun; from ' 'land' and ' 'speak, speech') is an Araucanian language related to Huilliche spoken in south-central Chile and west-central Argentina by the Mapuche people (from ''mapu'' 'land' and ''che ...
, Malagasy and Fijian. However, the exact articulation is seldom clear from descriptions. In Fijian, for example, further investigation has revealed that the sound (written ) is seldom trilled but is usually realized as a postalveolar stop instead. In Mapudungun, the sound (written ''tr'') is strongly retroflex, causing and following the subsequent vowel to become retroflex as well. The southern dialect varies between and , but it is not clear whether the letter represents a trill or a non-sibilant fricative.


Occurrence


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References

* * * Retroflex consonants Trill consonants Pulmonic consonants {{phonetics-stub