The voiced palatal implosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spokenlanguages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ ʄ ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J\_<. Typographically, the IPA symbol is a dotless lowercase letter j with a horizontal stroke (the symbol for the voiced palatal stop) and a rightward hook (the diacritic for implosives). A very similar-looking letter, ⟨ ƒ ⟩ (an ⟨f⟩ with a tail), is used in Ewe for /ɸ/.
Features
Features of the voiced palatal implosive:
Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive.
Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
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 implosive (glottalic ingressive), which means it is produced by pulling air in by pumping the glottis downward. Since it is voiced, the glottis is not completely closed, but allows a pulmonic airstream to escape through it.
Connell, Bruce; Ahoua, Firmin; Gibbon, Dafydd (2002), "Ega", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 32 (1): 99–104, doi:10.1017/S002510030200018X(subscription required)
Keer, Edward (1999), Geminates, The OCP and The Nature of CON, Rutgers University
