VOICELESS ALVEOLAR FRICATIVE

The 'voiceless alveolar fricatives' are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described.

★ The symbol for the alveolar 'sibilant' is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is s. The IPA symbol [s] is not normally used for dental or postalveolar sibilants unless modified by a diacritic ( and respectively).

★ The IPA symbol for the alveolar 'non-sibilant fricative' is derived by means of diacritics; it can be or , or it can be , using the alveolar diacritic from the Extended IPA. (Pandeli et al 1997)

''coronal fricatives''	dental	alveolar	postalveolar
'sibilant'
'non-sibilant'

Contents

The voiceless alveolar sibilant

Features

Occurrence

Voiceless apicoalveolar fricative

Occurence

Occurrence

The voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative

Features

Occurrence

See also

References

The voiceless alveolar sibilant

The voiceless alveolar sibilant is one of the most common consonants. If a language has fricatives, it will most likely have an [s] (Maddieson, 1984). However, [s] is absent from Australian Aboriginal languages, where fricatives are rare, and the few languages that have developed fricatives do not have sibilants.

Features

Features of the voiceless alveolar sibilant:

★ Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is produced by directing air flow through a groove in the tongue at the place of articulation and directing it over the sharp edge of the teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.

★ Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, termed respectively ''apical'' and ''laminal''.

★ Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.

★ 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 middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.

★ The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Occurrence

★ Basque: '''z'u'' , "you"

★ Burmese: စု '''c'u.'' "numeric classifier for groups"

★ Czech: '''s'vět'' , "world"

★ English: '''s'and''

★ Faroese: '''s'andur'' , "sand"

★ Finnish: '''s'inä'' , "you (sg.)"

★ French: ''fa'ç'ade'' , "front"

★ German: ''Bi'ss''' , "bite"

★ Hungarian: '''sz'iget'' , "island"

★ Japanese: 複数形 , "plural"

★ Limousin: ''mai'ch'ent'' , "bad"

★ Norwegian: '''s'and'' , "sand"

★ Spanish: '''s'altador'' , "jumper" (Most Latin American dialects)

★ Turkish: '''s'u'' , "water"

Voiceless apicoalveolar fricative

The 'voiceless apicoalveolar fricative',, is a fricative which is articulated with the tip of the tongue (apex) against the alveolar ridge. It is the sibilant found in dialects of central and northern Portuguese, Galician, several dialects of European Spanish, Antioqueño Spanish, Catalan, Gascon, Languedocien Occitan, Modern Greek, and Basque. Often to speakers of languages or dialects which do not have an apicoalvolear fricative, they are said to have a "whistling" quality.

Occurence

★ Basque: ''bo's't'' , "five"

★ Catalan: '''s'i's''' , "six"

★ Languedocien Occitan: ''do's''' , "two"

★ Galician: ''tre's''' , "three"

★ Gascon: ''do's''' , "two"

★ Greek: 'σ'αν , "as, like, for"

★ Spanish (peninsular, Antioqueño): ''do's''' , "two"

Occurrence

★ Turkish: '''s'u'' , "water"

The voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative

Features

The features of the voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative are identical to those above, except that,

★ Its manner of articulation is simple fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence, but without the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.

Occurrence

★ Icelandic: '''þ'akið'' , "roof".

★ Scouse English: ''coa't'''

See also

★ Apical consonant

★ Laminal consonant

★ List of phonetics topics

References

★ Carlos Castillo and Otto F. Bond. The University of Chicago Spanish Dictionary.

★ I. Maddieson, 1984. "Patterns of sound". ''Camebridge University Press''

★ Honeybone, P. (2001), Lenition inhibition in Liverpool English, ''English Language and Linguistics'' 5.2, pp213-249.

★ Marotta, G. and Barth, M., Acoustic and sociolingustic aspects of lenition in Liverpool English, ''Studi Linguistici e Filologici Online'' 3.2, pp377-413. Available online (including sound files).

★ Martin Harris and Nigel Vincent. The Romance Languages.

★ Pandeli, H., Eska, J., Ball, M. and Rahilly, J., Problems of phonetic transcription: the case of the Hiberno-English slit-t, ''Journal of the International Phonetic Association'' 27, pp65-75.

★ Alan Yates. Teach Yourself Catalan.