Consonants

This week’s answers:

1. Shaded areas in the IPA chart denote articulations that are deemed physically impossible. T/F?
   • True
2. Empty, unshaded areas in the IPA chart denote articulations that are physically possible, but not attested in the world’s languages. T/F?
   • True
3. There are languages in the world that use all the sounds represented in the IPA. T/F?
   • False (?)
4. Which of the following types of consonants is/are non-pulmonic?
   • Pulmonic sounds: sounds initiated by means of the lungs
5. Which type of click is rarest crosslinguistically?
   • Bilabial click

Pulmonic and non-pulmonic airstream mechanisms

1. Pulmonic egressive [lungs, air exits]
2. Glottalic ingressive [larynx, air enter]
   1. voiced implosives
   2. closure at the place of articulation, air flow from oral cavity into lungs, vibrating vocal folds and release oral closure
   3. because larynx must always allow air flow in, always voiced.
3. Glottalic egressive [larynx, air exit]
   1. ejectives
   2. closure at larynx and place of articulation, raise larynx to compress air and release oral closure
   3. because larynx must be closed, ejectives are always voiceless.
4. Velaric ingressive [velum, air enter]
   1. clicks
   2. air pocket between velum/uvula and other active articulator, expand air pocket and releae

Exotic Sounds and phonetic environment

Consonant IPA chart can be broken down into

• Pulmonic consonants
• Non-pulmonic consonants
• Other symbols
• Diacritics
  • Partial voicing/Slight raising, lowering/More, less rounding etc.

Important facts:

• Place of articulation form columns
• manner of articulation forms rows
• Empty boxes are not found in any language
• Shaded boxes are deemed impossible

Environment: The place in a word where the sound occurs

• Initial
• Medial
• Final

The environment may introduce variation in how a sound in pronounced.

• If 2 different sounds occur in the same environment
• And results in two different words
• The two words form a minimal pair and the sounds are contrastive.

Stops, nasals and fricatives (Obstruents + nasals)

• Languages generally choose either bilabial or labiodental fricatives as part of their inventory
  • because few languages contrast these fricatives (hard to hear difference)
  • Ewe in West Africa constrasts all (four labial fricatives)
• The coronal (dental/alveolar/post-alveolar) stops/nasals
  • [t, d, n] spread across all 3 places
    • dental variant: [t $\sqcap$, d $\sqcap$, n $_\sqcap$]
    • alveolar: [t,d,n]
    • post-alveolar variant: [t $_$, d $_$, n $__$]
  • languages generally only choose one of these places to use contrastively
  • the same symbol is used across all three regions here for each manner
  • not many languages contrast dental and alveolar
    • Exception: Malayalam and New Guinea
      • Alveolar made with tongue tip (apical)
      • Dental made with tongue blade (laminal)
• The oral plosives/stops cannot be nasalized.
  • complete oral closure
  • but nasalization lowers velum to allow airstream to go through nose (nasal stop)
  • impossible to “pop” from pressure buildup

English coronal stops and nasals are alveolar by default.

However, positional variants include the dental/post-alveolar versions.

• The coronal fricatives
  • Different symbols because often used contrastively.
  • [s, z, ʃ, ʒ] (alveolar, post-alveolar fricatives) are grooved fricatives
    • Groove in tongue creates channel of airflow (center lowered, sides raised)
    • aka sibilants
    • [ʃ] is more rounded than [s] $\Rightarrow$ bigger channel $\Rightarrow$ lower pitch.
  • [θ, ð] (dental fricatives) are not: tongue flat
  • nasalized fricatives are possible but are weaker
    • airstream split into half as velum lowers: through nasal cavity and oral cavity.
• The labial/labiodental fricatives
  • Typically not contrastive, languages choose one set.
• Retroflex
  • Curled back tongue tip versions of the other coronals.
  • Hindi has retroflex stops, fricatives and nasals
• Palatals
  • Raising the tongue front and tongue body to the front palate.

Rhotics

Cover term for r-sounds. They are very heterogenous in production