UVULAR EJECTIVE

The 'uvular ejective' 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 q_>.

Contents

Features

Occurrence

See also

Features

Features of the uvular ejective:

★ Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.

★ Its place of articulation is uvular, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) against or near the uvula.

★ Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.

★ It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.

★ It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the center of the tongue, rather than the sides.

★ The airstream mechanism is glottalic egressive, which means it is produced by pushing air with the glottis, rather than with the diaphragm.

Occurrence

''One ejective''

A single plain uvular ejective is found in almost all Northeast Caucasian languages, all South Caucasian languages, and some Athabaskan languages, as well as Itelmen, Quechua and Aymara.

★ Itelmen, where it is written : [] ''to depart''.

★ Georgian, where it is written : [] ''skin'', ''pelt''. Unlike its velar counterpart, it does not contrast with voiced or voiceless uvular plosives; the voiceless uvular plosive of Old Georgian has merged with the voiceless velar fricative in modern Georgian. Some scholars view this Georgian phoneme as being rather an uvular ejective fricative //.

★ Tahltan: [] ''door''.
''Two ejectives''

Most Salishan languages, the Tlingit language, and Adyghe and Kabardian (Northwest Caucasian) demonstrate a two-way contrast between labialised and plain uvular ejectives.

★ Klallam: [] ''frog'', [] ''head''.

★ Lezgi, where the two are written and : [] ''tall'', ''high'', [] ''groin''.

★ North Straits Salish, where the two are written 'K' and 'K̴' in the Saanich orthography: Saanich 'K'EYOṮEN [] ''slug'', ''snail'', S'K̴'EḰĆES [] ''red huckleberry''.
The Akhvakh language appears to have a contrast between lax and tense uvular ejectives: [] ''soup'', ''broth'' (lax) vs. [] ''cock's comb'' (tense).
''Three ejectives''


★ Abkhaz contrasts plain, palatalised and labialised uvular ejectives, written : [] ''red'', [] ''really'', ''indeed'' (a verbal suffix), [] ''Sukhum''. As with Georgian, Abkhaz has no non-ejective uvular plosives; the historically present uvular aspirates have merged with their corresponding fricatives, although the aspirates are preserved in Abaza.
''Five ejectives''


★ The plain uvular ejective is one of the most common consonants in Ubykh, due to its presence in the past tense suffix //. But in addition to palatalised, labialised and plain uvular ejectives, Ubykh also possesses a pharyngealised version and a concurrently labialised ''and'' pharyngealised version, making a total of five: [] ''he said it'', [] ''small and round'', [] ''to seize'', [] ''to chew'', [] ''cavern''.

See also

★ List of phonetics topics