Voiceless retroflex sibilant
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| Voiceless retroflex sibilant | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ʂ | |||
| IPA number | 136 | ||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ʂ |
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| Unicode (hex) | U+0282 | ||
| X-SAMPA | s` |
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| Kirshenbaum | s. |
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| Braille |   |
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| Sound | |||
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The voiceless retroflex sibilant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʂ⟩. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA letter is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook to the bottom of the ess (the letter used for the corresponding alveolar consonant). A distinction can be made between laminal, apical, and sub-apical articulations. Only one language Toda, appears to have more than one voiceless retroflex sibilant, and it distinguishes subapical palatal from apical postalveolar retroflex sibilants; that is, both the tongue articulation and the place of contact on the roof of the mouth are different.
Contents |
Features [edit]
Features of the voiceless retroflex fricative:
- Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is generally produced by channeling air flow along a groove in the back of the tongue up to the place of articulation, at which point it is focused against the sharp edge of the nearly clenched teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.
- Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical sub-apical articulation, the tongue contact can be apical (pointed) or laminal (flat).
- Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
- It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
- It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
- The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.
Occurrence [edit]
In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between apical [ʂ̺] and laminal [ʂ̻].
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abkhaz | амш | [amʂ] | 'day' | See Abkhaz phonology | |
| Adyghe | пшъашъэ |  [pʂaːʂa] (help·info) |
'girl' | ||
| Chinese | Mandarin | 石 shí | [ʂ̺ɻ̩˧˥] | 'stone' | Laminal. See Mandarin phonology |
| English | Many dialects [citation needed] |
[pʂɹɪnt] | 'print' | More often post-alveolar or alveolar, often also labialized. Quick sequence [ʂɹ] is an allophone of /r/ after aspirated /p/ and /k/ in dialects that realize /r/ as a retroflex, postalveolar or alveolar approximant. For some speakers, particularly in fast speech, [ɹ] can be completely deleted (e.g. [pʂɪnt]). | |
| Faroese | fýrs | [fʊʂ] | 'eighty' | ||
| Malayalam | കഷ്ടി | [käʂʈi] | 'scarce' | ||
| Norwegian | forsamling | [fɔʂɑmːlɪŋ][stress?] | 'gathering' | Allophone of the sequence /ɾs/ in many dialects, including Standard Eastern Norwegian. See Norwegian phonology | |
| Pashto | Southern dialect | ښودل | [ʂ̺odəl] | 'to show' | |
| Polish[1] | szum | [ʂ̻um] (help·info) |
'rustle' | Transcribed /ʃ/ by most Polish scholars. See Polish phonology | |
| Russian[1] | шут | [ʂut̪] | 'jester' | Apical. See Russian phonology | |
| Sicilian | strata | [ˈʂːaːta] | 'street' | ||
| Slovak[2] | šatka | [ˈʂatka] | 'kerchief' | ||
| Swedish | fors | [fɔʂ] | 'rapids' | Allophone of the sequence /rs/ in many dialects, including Central Standard Swedish. See Swedish phonology | |
| Telugu | అభిలాషి | [ʌbʱilaːʂi] | 'person who wishes' | ||
| Toda[3] | [pɔʂ] | (clan name) | Subapical | ||
| Torwali[4] | ? | [ʂeʂ] | 'thin rope' | ||
| Ubykh | [ʂ̺a] | 'head' | See Ubykh phonology | ||
| Vietnamese | Southern dialects[5] | sữa | [ʂɨə˧ˀ˥] | 'milk' | See Vietnamese phonology |
| Yi | ꏂ shy | [ʂ̺ɿ̄˧] | 'gold' | ||
| Zapotec | Tilquiapan[6] | [example needed] | — | — | Allophone of /ʃ/ before [a] and [u]. |
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ a b Hamann (2004:65)
- ^ Hanulíková & Hamann (2010:374)
- ^ Ladefoged (2005:168)
- ^ Lunsford (2001:16–20)
- ^ Thompson (1959:458–461)
- ^ Merrill (2008:109)
Bibliography [edit]
- Hamann, Silke (2004), "Retroflex fricatives in Slavic languages", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 53–67, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001604
- Hanulíková, Adriana; Hamann, Silke (2010), "Slovak", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 40 (3): 373–378, doi:10.1017/S0025100310000162
- Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (2nd ed.), Blackwell
- Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (1): 107–114, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344
- Lunsford, Wayne A. (2001), "An overview of linguistic structures in Torwali, a language of Northern Pakistan", M.A. thesis, University of Texas at Arlington
- Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232
