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The distinction between vowels and consonants is based on three main
criteria:physiological: airflow / constriction
acoustic: prominence
phonological: syllabicity
Sometimes, it is necessary to rely on two or three of these criteria to decide
whether a sound is a vowel or a consonant.
Physiological Distinction
In general, consonants can be said to have a greater degree of constriction
than vowels. This is obviously the case for oral and nasal stops, fricatives and
affricates. The case for approximants is not so clear-cut as the semi-vowels /j/
and /w/ are very often indistinguishable from vowels in terms of their
constriction.
Acoustic Distinction
In general, consonants can be said to be less prominent than vowels. This is
usually manifested by vowels being more intense than the consonants that
surround them. Sometimes, certain consonants can have a greater total
intensity than adjacent vowels but vowels are almost always more intense at
low frequencies than adjacent consonants.
Phonological Distinction
Syllables usually consist of a vowel surrounded optionally by a number of
consonants. A single vowel forms the prominent nucleus of each syllable.
There is only one peak of prominence per syllable and this is nearly always a
vowel. The consonants form the less prominent valleys between the vowel
peaks. This tidy picture is disturbed by the existence of syllabic consonants.
Syllabic consonants form the nucleus of a syllable that does not contain a
vowel. In English, syllabic consonants occur when an approximant or a nasal
stop follows a homorganic (same place of articulation) oral stop (or
occasionally a fricative) in words such as "bottle" /btl/ or "button" /btn/.
The semi-vowels in English play the same phonological role as the other
consonants even though they are vowel-like in many ways. The semi-vowels
are found in syllable positions where stops, fricatives, etc. are found (eg. "pay",
"may", and "say" versus "way").

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RECOMMENDED READINGS
Clark and Yallop, chapter 3 ("Units of Speech") and especially sections 3.2 to
3.10
Ladefoged, chapter 9, has some discussion of complex articulations in vowels.
Of the above references, the Clark and Yallop reference is the most detailed.
REFERENCE

The following book was the source of many of the examples included below. It
is not required reading for this course, but is an excellent reference for anyone
with a continuing interest in phonetics.
Ladefoged, P. and Maddieson, I., 1996, The Sounds of the World's Languages,
Blackwell, Oxford
OTHER TOPICS
The topic "Complex Consonant Articulations" commences with a general
description of complex articulations.
You should also examine the topic "IPA Diacritics" for details of some of the
diacritic symbols used in the transcription of complex vowel articulations.
Diphthongisation
Diphthongs are essentially single vowel phonemes that consist of two pure
vowel targets in sequence. In diphthongs it is often assumed that both targets
have equal importance and one does not dominate the other in determining
the identity of the vowel. When an initial brief vowel gesture is dominated by a
following full target the initial gesture is referred to as an onglide. When a final
brief vowel gesture is dominated by a preceding vowel target the brief final
gesture is referred to as an offglide. Sometimes diphthongisation can be
extended to three vowel targets in triphthongs.
Two identical sequences can be identified as a single diphthong phoneme in
one language and as a monophthong phoneme plus a semi-vowel phoneme in
another language.
Transcription
Diphthongs are ideally transcribed as a sequence of two vowel symbols that
represent, as closely as possible, the pronunciation of each of the two targets.
eg. /a/ /e/ //
Onglides are usually indicated by a preceding superscript and offglides by a
following superscript of a symbol appropriate to the pronunciation of the glide
gesture. Such glides are very often schwas, but this is certainly not always the
case.
eg. [i] []
Examples
See the topic "The Vowels of Australian English and Other English Dialects" for
examples of diphthongs from Australian English and other English dialects.
Nasalisation of Vowels
In the lecture on vowels we have already dealt briefly with nasalised vowels.
This vowel nasalisation is a complex articulation and is an example of
simultaneous nasalisation. Such contrastive simultaneous nasalisation must
not be confused with contextual and pervasive nasality. Contextual nasality
occurs in vowels, as well as approximants and fricatives, when they are
adjacent to nasal stops. Pervasive nasality is nasality that occurs throughout a
person's speech as a result of habit, dialect or pathology. Simultaneous
nasalisation of consonants is very rare as a contrastive feature in languages.

Transcription
Simultaneous nasalisation is transcribed by placing the "tilde" symbol over
the symbol for the sound being nasalised.
eg. [e], [ ], [ ]
Examples
See the web page on Vowel Systems for examples of languages with vowel
systems that include contrastive vowel nasalisation.
Vowel Retroflexion
Vowel retroflexion introduces an r-colouration to a vowel, usually by curling the
tongue tip up and back from its normal position, but without moving the
tongue body from it normal position for that vowel. Such vowels are often
called "rhoticised" vowels. This vowel feature is commonly found in the speech
of many American and Irish speakers of English. It occurs in the environment of
a following [] but in some cases the rhoticised vowel is all that remains of a
deleted following [] or alternatively the vowel is completely deleted and the
[] becomes syllabic.
Transcription
In the past vowel retroflexion was sometimes indicated by a following
superscript "" as in []. The current IPA standard recommends instead the
following transcription:eg. [a] [] [] (ie. the affected vowel followed by the diacritic )
Examples
Badaga (Dravidian Language, India) has two degrees of vowel retroflexion
(but the intermediate contrast is disappearing)
[be] "mouth"
[be] "bangle"
[be ] "crop"
[kasu]
"coin"
[ka su]
"spread out"
[ka su]
Monophthongs
[i:], [i], [e], [], [a:], [o:], [o], [u:], [yu:], [u], [r], []
bean bin Ben ban bar born bond boom beauty book burn
bun;
peat pit pet pat part port pot pool pew put purr pus;
Contrasting monophthongs in pairs
[i:] [i]
lead lid, read rid, feel fill, deal dill, heel hill, team Tim, keen kin,
seen sin, teen tin, leave live;
peak pick, seek sick; sheep ship, heap hip, leap lip, beat bit, feet fit,
seat sit;

[i:] [i]: eat fish, be sick, feel ill, see him, meet Bill, deal with, read this, beat it;
[i] [i:]: kiss me, lip cream, till three;
[i] [e]
bill bell, fill fell, till tell, him hem, pin pen, tin ten, win when, bid
bed, did dead, Liz Les, since sense;
pit pet, sit set, Nick neck, pick peck, miss mess, wrist rest, lift left;
[i] [e]: Big Ben, six guests, live well, since ten; [e] [i]: tell Tim, test him;
[e] []
bed bad, said sad, beg bag, leg lag, hell Hal, hem ham;
Ben ban, pen pan, den Dan, ten tan, men man; bend band, lend
land, send sand;
bet bat, met mat, pet pat, set sat, mess mass, wreck rack, peck
pack, letter latter, better batter;
[e] []: red bag, fell back, met Alice, pen pal; [] [e]: Ann said, bad pen,
add ten, marry Mary;
[] [a:]
bad bard, lad lard, Pam palm, cam calm, carry car, Barry bar;
cat cart, hat heart, mat mart, pat part, cap carp, back bark, pack
park,
[] [a:]: Dan's father, last part, fast cars; [a:] []: smart Alex, hard candy,
Karl's cat;
[] []
fan fun, ran run, sang sung, land lung, Dan done, man month, frank
front, Sam some, ram rum, damp dump, bag bug, rag rug;
cat cut, bat but, hat hut, fat fuss, last lust, task tusk, back buck,
lack luck, tack tuck, stack stuck;
[] []: bad cut, bad blood, bad luck, black gun, last month, Ann's mother;
[] []: some tan, one man, a bag, a hat;
[a:] [o:]
far four, car core, tar tore, star store, card cord, bard board, barn
born;
park pork, stark stork, part port, cart court, Marty Morty,

[a:] [o:]: carport, Bart bought, hard core; [o:] [a:]: four cars, ball park, small
yard;
[a:] []
barn bun, calm come, drama drum, march much, darn done, far sofa,
father mother;
bark buck, dark duck, lark luck, tar tuck, stark stuck, heart hut,
[a:] [r]
hard heard, card curd, far fur, farm firm, barn burn, large splurge,
charge church;
heart hurt, cart Curt, dark dirt, lark lurk, park perk, carton curtain,
[o:] [r]
call curl, hall hurl, all earl, Paul pearl, saw sir, lawn learn;
war were, ward word, warm worm, reward reword, walk work, wart
worth;
four fir, sore sir, store stir, core occur, pour purr;
born burn, torn turn, form firm, board bird, cord curd,
course curse, caught curt, short shirt, talk Turk;
[o:] [r]: warm words, four birds, call Kurt; [r] [o:]: first floor, third door,
learn all;
[o] []
bomb bum, rob rub, college color, common come, comma company,
body buddy, bother brother;
gone done, nonsense none, honor honey, monitor money, monument
Monday, fond front, tongs tongue, sponsor sponge;
conference confess, continent contain, content (n.) content (adj.) ,
contract (n.) contract (v.), contrary control, policy police;
lock luck, sock suck, cop cup, hot hut, not nut, cloth nothing, bottle
butter, bottom button;
[u:] [yu:]
food feud, fool fume, cool cute, who hue, ooze use, moose muse,
boot beauty;
[u:] [u]

fool full, pool pull, womb woman, food foot, Luke look, tooth took,
shoot should;
[u] [o]
cook cock, look lock, rook rock, took stock, put pot, good god;
[u] []
book buck, look luck, took tuck, put but, push hush, full dull, pull
hull;
The sounds [] (but) and [r] (bird)
[] [r]
bud bird, cub curb, bun burn, ton turn, fun fern, soda coder;
luck lurk, shut shirt, but Bert, hut hurt, such search, bust burst, sofa
suffer, quota quarter;
stressed [] unstressed []
son lesson, some awesome, muss famous, numb venom, thud method,
stressed [r] unstressed [r]
fur offer, refer suffer, sir answer, purr helper, burn stubborn, turn
lantern;
Contrasting monophthongs and diphthongs in pairs
[e] [ei]
pen pain, den Dane, many main, fell fail, sell sail, bed bade, fed
fade, red raid;
let late, met mate, debt date, bet bait, wet wait, sec sake, wreck
rake, neck snake;
[e] [ei]: next day, let's stay, Ben met Kate, felt great, tell tales; [ei] [e]:
make friends, raise hell, say when;
[a:] [ai]
par pie, are eye, bar by, charm chime, hard hide,
park pike, spark spike, harp hype, cart kite, Bart bite;
[a:] [ai]: far cry, hard to find, barfly; [ai] [a:]: die hard, my card, like art;
[a:] [au]
hard hound, darn down, lard loud,

art out, part pout; start stout; shark shout;

[a:] [au]: start now, calm down, dark house, farther south; [au] [a:]: how
hard, downhearted;
[] [ai]
pal pile, pan pine, man mine, band bind, candy kind, hand hind;
lack like, tap type, rap ripe, mass mice, rat right, fat fight;
[] [au]
Al owl, lad loud, sand sound, tan town, Dan down, Fran frown,
mass mouse, lass louse;
[o:] [au]
nor now, hall howl, fall foul, dawn down, drawn drown, crawl crown,
cord crowd, pause spouse;
short shout; port pout, sport spout;
[o:] [ou]
saw so, law low, raw row, lawn lone, drawn drone, clause close,
pause pose, cause cozy, caught coat, ought oat;
hall whole, mall mole, bald bold, called cold, call comb, walk woke,
falcon folk;
more mow, bore bow, door doe, sore sew, tore tow, lord load, born
bone, torn tone, mourn mown;
[o:] [ou]: more roads, call Flo, lawn mower; [ou] [o:]: cold sore, old Ford, no
laws, so tall, don't fall, close call;
[o] [ou]
nod node, odd owed, model modal, modern motel, mob mobile,
monument moment, column colon, doll roll;
option open, pot potent, hot hotel, lost ghost, monster most, positive
post, hostel host;
[o] [ou]: hot rolls, pot roast, hostile host; [ou] [o]: role model, don't bother,
most hospitals;
[] [ou]
mud mode, nut note, but boat, must most, bust boast, bus both, Russ
gross;

done donor, done don't, won won't, one only, mother motor, does
dose, cover clover;
[] [ou]: a boat, a donor, the host, some notes; [ou] []: only one, both
mothers, won't trust, most buses, no money;
Contrasting diphthongs in pairs
[ai] [au]
high how, nine noun, bright brow, find found, hind hound, signed
sound;
[ai] [au]: nice town, try now, light-brown, night owl, five rounds; [au] [ai]:
how nice;
[ai] [oi]
rye Roy, tie toy, buy boy, file foil, bile boil, pint point, lied Lloyd;
[au] [ou]
now no, how owe, pow mow, allow low, cow crow, thou though;
owl own, brown bowl, cowl coal, drown drone, town tone, noun
known, loud load,
couch coach, pouch poach;
[ai] [ou]
die doe, tie toe, lie low, my Moe, sigh so, guy go;
ride road, lied load, tile toll, pile poll, cries crows, flies flows, night
note;
[ai] [ei]
buy bay, pie pay, die day, lie lay, sty stay, high hey, rye ray;
file fail, mile mail, pile pale, tile tail, time tame, line lane, pine pain,
sign sane, rise raise;
rice race, fight fate, light late, right rate, height hate;
[ai] [ei]: my day, white paint, why wait, crime rate; [ei] [ai]: take time, eight
miles, late night, say hi;
Diphthongs
[ei], [ai], [au], [oi], [ou]
bay buy bough boy bone;

bait bite bout boil boat;

Dane dine down Doyle dough;
tame time town toy tone;
ale I'll owl oil old;
great grind ground groin grow;
paint pint pound point poll;
maize mice mouse moist most.
A diphthong (/df/ dif-thong or /dp/ dip-thong[1]) (Greek: ,
diphthongos, literally "two sounds" or "two tones"), also known as a gliding
vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable.
Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the
tongue (and/or other parts of the speech apparatus) moves during the
pronunciation of the vowel. In most dialects of English, the phrase no highway
cowboys /no hawe kabz/ has five distinct diphthongs, one in every
syllable.
Diphthongs contrast with monophthongs, where the tongue or other speech
organs do not move significantly and the syllable contains only a single vowel
sound. For instance, in English, the word ah is spoken as a monophthong //,
while the word ow is spoken as a diphthong /a/. Where two adjacent vowel
sounds occur in different syllablesfor example, in the English word re-elect
the result is described as hiatus, not as a diphthong.
Diphthongs often form when separate vowels are run together in rapid speech
during a conversation. However, there are also unitary diphthongs, as in the
English examples above, which are heard by listeners as single-vowel sounds
(phonemes).[2]
Transcription[edit]
In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), monophthongs are transcribed
with one symbol, as in English sun [sn], in which represents a
monophthong. Diphthongs are transcribed with two symbols, as in English high
[ha] or cow [ka], in which a and a represent diphthongs.
Diphthongs may be transcribed with two vowel symbols or with a vowel
symbol and a semivowel symbol. In the words above, the less prominent
member of the diphthong can be represented with the symbols for the palatal
approximant [j] and the labiovelar approximant [w], with the symbols for the
close vowels [i] and [u], or the symbols for the near-close vowels [] and []:
vowel and semivowel
haj kaw
broader transcription
two vowel symbols hai kau
ha ka
narrower transcription
Some transcriptions are broader or narrower (less precise or more precise
phonetically) than others. Transcribing the English diphthongs in high and cow

as aj aw and ai au is a less precise or broader transcription, since these

diphthongs usually end in a vowel sound that is opener than the semivowels [j
w] or the close vowels [i u]. Transcribing the diphthongs as a a is a more
precise or narrower transcription, since the English diphthongs usually end in
the near-close vowels [ ].
Sometimes the non-syllabic diacritic, the inverted breve below ,[3] is placed
under the less prominent part of a diphthong to show that it is part of a
diphthong rather than a vowel in a separate syllable: [a a].
The period . is the opposite of the non-syllabic diacritic: it represents a
syllable break. If two vowels next to each other belong to two different
syllables (hiatus), meaning that they do not form a diphthong, they can be
transcribed with two vowel symbols with a period in between. Thus, lower can
be transcribed lo.r, with a period separating the first syllable, /lo/, from
the second syllable, /r/.
The non-syllabic diacritic is only used when necessary. It is typically omitted
when there is no ambiguity, as in ha ka. No words in English have the vowel
sequences *[a. a.], so the non-syllabic diacritic is unnecessary.
Types[edit]
Falling and rising[edit]
Falling (or descending) diphthongs start with a vowel quality of higher
prominence (higher pitch or volume) and end in a semivowel with less
prominence, like [a] in eye, while rising (or ascending) diphthongs begin with
a less prominent semivowel and end with a more prominent full vowel, similar
to the [ja] in yard. (Note that "falling" and "rising" in this context do not refer
to vowel height; for that, the terms "opening" and "closing" are used instead.
See below.) The less prominent component in the diphthong may also be
transcribed as an approximant, thus [aj] in eye and [ja] in yard. However, when
the diphthong is analysed as a single phoneme, both elements are often
transcribed with vowel letters (/a/, /a/). Note also that semivowels and
approximants are not equivalent in all treatments, and in the English and
Italian languages, among others, many phoneticians do not consider rising
combinations to be diphthongs, but rather sequences of approximant and
vowel. There are many languages (such as Romanian) that contrast one or
more rising diphthongs with similar sequences of a glide and a vowel in their
phonetic inventory[4] (see semivowel for examples).
Closing, opening, and centering[edit]
In closing diphthongs, the second element is more close than the first (e.g.
[ai]); in opening diphthongs, the second element is more open (e.g. [ia]).
Closing diphthongs tend to be falling ([ai]), and opening diphthongs are
generally rising ([ia]),[citation needed] as open vowels are more sonorous and
therefore tend to be more prominent. However, exceptions to this rule are not
rare in the world's languages. In Finnish, for instance, the opening
diphthongs /ie/ and /uo/ are true falling diphthongs, since they begin louder
and with higher pitch and fall in prominence during the diphthong.
A third, rare type of diphthong that is neither opening nor closing is heightharmonic diphthongs, with both elements at the same vowel height.[5] These
occurred in Old English:

beon [beon] "be"

ceald [kld] "cold"
A centering diphthong is one that begins with a more peripheral vowel and
ends with a more central one, such as [], [], and [] in Received
Pronunciation or [i] and [u] in Irish. Many centering diphthongs are also
opening diphthongs ([i], [u]).
Diphthongs may contrast in how far they open or close. For example, Samoan
contrasts low-to-mid with low-to-high diphthongs:
ai [ai] 'probably'
ae [ae] 'but'
auro [auo] 'gold'
ao [ao] 'a cloud'
Narrow and wide[edit]
Narrow diphthongs are the ones that end with a vowel which on a vowel chart
is quite close to the one that begins the diphthong, for example Northern
Dutch [e], [] and [o]. Wide diphthongs are the opposite - they require a
greater tongue movement, and their offsets are farther away from their
starting points on the vowel chart. Examples of wide diphthongs are RP/GA
English [a] and [a].
Length[edit]
Languages differ in the length of diphthongs, measured in terms of morae. In
languages with phonemically short and long vowels, diphthongs typically
behave like long vowels, and are pronounced with a similar length.[citation
needed] In languages with only one phonemic length for pure vowels,
however, diphthongs may behave like pure vowels.[citation needed] For
example, in Icelandic, both monophthongs and diphthongs are pronounced
long before single consonants and short before most consonant clusters.
Some languages contrast short and long diphthongs. In some languages, such
as Old English, these behave like short and long vowels, occupying one and
two morae, respectively. Languages that contrast three quantities in
diphthongs are extremely rare, but not unheard of; Northern Sami is known to
contrast long, short and "finally stressed" diphthongs, the last of which are
distinguished by a long second element.[citation needed]
Phonology[edit]
In some languages, diphthongs are single phonemes, while in others they are
analyzed as sequences of two vowels, or of a vowel and a semivowel.
Sound changes[edit]
Certain sound changes relate to diphthongs and monophthongs. Vowel
breaking or diphthongization is a vowel shift in which a monophthong becomes
a diphthong. Monophthongization or smoothing is a vowel shift in which a
diphthong becomes a monophthong.
Difference from a vowel and semivowel[edit]
While there are a number of similarities, diphthongs are not the same
phonologically as a combination of a vowel and an approximant or glide. Most
importantly, diphthongs are fully contained in the syllable nucleus[6][7] while a
semivowel or glide is restricted to the syllable boundaries (either the onset or
the coda). This often manifests itself phonetically by a greater degree of

constriction,[8] though the phonetic distinction is not always clear.[9] The

English word yes, for example, consists of a palatal glide followed by a
monophthong rather than a rising diphthong. In addition, the segmental
elements must be different in diphthongs so that [ii], when it occurs in a
language, does not contrast with [i] though it is possible for languages to
contrast [ij] and [i].[10]
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive, nasal stop in contrast with
a nasal fricative, or nasal continuant, is an occlusive consonant produced with
a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of
nasals in English are [n] and [m], in words such as nose and mouth. Nasal
occlusives are nearly universal in human languages. There are also other kinds
of nasal consonants in some languages.
Contents [hide]
1 Definition
2 Voiceless nasals
3 Other kinds of nasal consonant
4 Languages without nasals
5 See also
6 Notes
7 References
Definition[edit]
Nearly all nasal consonants are nasal occlusives, where air escapes through
the nose but not through the mouth, as it is blocked (occluded) by the lips or
tongue. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound. Rarely,
non-occlusive consonants may be nasalized.
Most nasals are voiced, and in fact the nasal sounds [n] and [m] are among the
most common sounds cross-linguistically. Voiceless nasals do occur in a few
languages, such as Burmese, Welsh, Icelandic and Guaran. (Compare oral
stops, which block off the air completely, and fricatives, which obstruct the air
with a narrow channel. Both stops and fricatives are more commonly voiceless
than voiced, and are known as obstruents.)
In terms of acoustics, nasals are sonorants, meaning that they do not
significantly restrict the escape of air (as it can freely escape out the nose).
However, nasals are also obstruents in their articulation because the flow of air
through the mouth is blocked. This duality, a sonorant airflow through the nose
along with an obstruction in the mouth, means that nasal occlusives behave
both like sonorants and like obstruents. For example, nasals tend to pattern
with other sonorants such as [r] and [l], but in many languages they may
develop from or into stops.
Acoustically, nasals have bands of energy at around 200 and 2,000 Hz.
Voiced
Voiceless
Description IPA
Description IPA
voiced bilabial nasal
[m]
voiceless bilabial nasal
[m]
voiced labiodental nasal []
voiceless labiodental nasal
voiced dental nasal[n]
voiceless dental nasal
[n]
voiced alveolar nasal 1
[n]
voiceless alveolar nasal 1 [n]
voiced retroflex nasal
[]
voiceless retroflex nasal []
voiced palatal nasal
[]
voiceless palatal nasal
[]

[]

voiced velar nasal []

voiceless velar nasal
[ ]
voiced uvular nasal[]
voiceless uvular nasal
[]
1. ^ The symbol n is commonly used to represent the dental nasal as well,
rather than n, as it is rarely distinguished from the alveolar nasal.
Examples of languages containing nasal occlusives:
The voiced retroflex nasal is [] is a common sound in Languages of India.
The voiced palatal nasal [] is a common sound in European languages, such
as: Spanish , French and Italian gn, Catalan and Hungarian ny, Czech and
Slovak , Polish , Occitan and Portuguese nh, Serbo-Croatian nj, and
(before a vowel) Modern Greek .
Many Germanic languages, including German, Dutch, English and Swedish, as
well as Sinitic languages such as Mandarin and Cantonese, have [m], [n] and
[]. Tamil has a six-fold distinction between [m], [n], [n], [], [] and []
(,,,,,).
Catalan, Occitan, Spanish, and Italian have [m], [n], [] as phonemes, and []
and [] as allophones. Nevertheless, in several American dialects of Spanish,
there is no palatal nasal but only a palatalized nasal, [n], as in English canyon.
In Brazilian Portuguese and Angolan Portuguese [], written nh, is typically
pronounced as [] , that is, as a nasal palatal approximant, a nasal glide (in
Polish this feature is also possible as an allophone). Semivowels in Portuguese
often nasalize before and always after nasal vowels, resulting in [ ] and [w].
What would be coda nasal occlusives in other West Iberian languages is only
slightly pronounced before dental consonants, outside this environment the
nasality is spread over the vowel or become a nasal diphthong (e.g.
mambembe [m bjbi], outside the final, only in Brazil, and mantm [m tj ~
m t j] in all Portuguese dialects).
The term 'nasal occlusive' (or 'nasal stop') is generally abbreviated to nasal.
However, there are also nasalized fricatives, nasalized flaps, nasal glides, and
nasal vowels, as in French, Portuguese, and Polish. In the IPA, nasal vowels and
nasalized consonants are indicated by placing a tilde (~) over the vowel or
consonant in question: French sang [s ], Portuguese bom [b].
Voiceless nasals[edit]
A few languages have phonemic voiceless nasal occlusives. Among them are
Icelandic, Burmese, Jalapa Mazatec, Kildin Sami, Welsh, and Central Alaskan
Yup'ik. Iaai of New Caledonia has an unusually large number of them, with /m
m n /.
Other kinds of nasal consonant[edit]
Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996) distinguish purely nasal consonants, the
nasal occlusives such as m n ng in which the airflow is purely nasal, from
partial nasal consonants such as prenasalized stops and prestopped nasals,
which are nasal for only part of their duration, as well as from nasalized
consonants, which have simultaneous oral and nasal airflow.[1] In some
languages, such as Portuguese, a nasal consonant may have occlusive and
non-occlusive allophones. In general, therefore, a nasal consonant may be:

a nasal occlusive, such as English m, n, ng

a nasal approximant, as in Brazilian Portuguese nh
a nasal flap, such as the nasal retroflex lateral flap in Pashto
prenasalized stops and prestopped nasals
a nasal click, such as Zulu nq, nx, nc
other nasalized consonants, such as nasalized fricatives
Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel
made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip
against the upper teeth, in the case of [f]; the back of the tongue against the
soft palate, in the case of German [x], the final consonant of Bach; or the side
of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh [], appearing twice in
the name Llanelli. This turbulent airflow is called frication. A particular subset
of fricatives are the sibilants. When forming a sibilant, one still is forcing air
through a narrow channel, but in addition the tongue is curled lengthwise to
direct the air over the edge of the teeth. English [s], [z], [], and [] are
examples of this.
Two other terms are spirant and strident, but their usage is less standardized.
The former can be used synonymously with "fricative", or (as in e.g. Uralic
linguistics) to refer to non-sibilant fricatives only. The latter can be used
synonymously with "sibilant", but some authors include also labiodental and/or
uvular fricatives in the class.
Contents [hide]
1 Sibilant fricatives
2 Central non-sibilant fricatives
3 Lateral fricatives
4 Symbols used for both fricatives and approximants
5 Pseudo-fricatives
6 Aspirated fricatives
7 Languages
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
Sibilant fricatives[edit]
[s] voiceless coronal sibilant, as in English sip
[z] voiced coronal sibilant, as in English zip
[s] ejective coronal sibilant
[s] voiceless dental sibilant
[z] voiced dental sibilant
[s] voiceless apical sibilant
[z] voiced apical sibilant
[s] voiceless postalveolar sibilant (laminal)
[z] voiced postalveolar sibilant (laminal)
[] voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant (domed, partially palatalized), as in English
ship
[] voiced palato-alveolar sibilant (domed, partially palatalized), as the s in
English vision
[] voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant (laminal, palatalized)
[] voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant (laminal, palatalized)
[] voiceless retroflex sibilant (apical or subapical)
[] voiced retroflex sibilant (apical or subapical)

All sibilants are coronal, but may be dental, alveolar, postalveolar, or palatal
(retroflex) within that range. However, at the postalveolar place of articulation,
the tongue may take several shapes: domed, laminal, or apical, and each of
these is given a separate symbol and a separate name. Prototypical retroflexes
are subapical and palatal, but they are usually written with the same symbol
as the apical postalveolars. The alveolars and dentals may also be either apical
or laminal, but this difference is indicated with diacritics rather than with
separate symbols.
Central non-sibilant fricatives[edit]
[] voiceless bilabial fricative
[] voiced bilabial fricative
[f] voiceless labiodental fricative, as in English fine
[v] voiced labiodental fricative, as in English vine
[] voiceless linguolabial fricative
[] voiced linguolabial fricative
[], [] voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative, as in English thing
[], [] voiced dental non-sibilant fricative, as in English that
[], [] voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative
[], [] voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative
[r] voiceless trilled fricative
[r] voiced trilled fricative
[] voiceless palatal fricative
[] voiced palatal fricative
[x] voiceless velar fricative
[] voiced velar fricative
[] voiceless palatal-velar fricative (articulation disputed)
[] voiceless uvular fricative
[] voiceless pharyngeal fricative
The IPA also has letters for epiglottal fricatives,
[] voiceless epiglottal fricative
[] voiced epiglottal fricative
with allophonic trilling, but these might be better analyzed as pharyngeal trills.
[1]
Lateral fricatives[edit]
[] voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
[] voiced alveolar lateral fricative
[] or [] voiceless retroflex lateral fricative (also written )
[] or [] voiceless palatal lateral fricative (also written )
[] voiceless velar lateral fricative (also written )
[] voiced velar lateral fricative
The lateral fricative occurs as the ll of Welsh, as in Lloyd, Llewelyn, and the
town of Machynlleth ([maxn]), as the unvoiced 'hl' and voiced 'dl' or 'dhl'
in the several languages of Southern Africa (such as Xhosa and Zulu), and in
Mongolian.
Symbols used for both fricatives and approximants[edit]
[] voiced uvular fricative
[] voiced pharyngeal fricative
No language distinguishes voiced fricatives from approximants at these places,
so the same symbol is used for both. For the pharyngeal, approximants are
more numerous than fricatives. A fricative realization may be specified by

adding the uptack to the letters, [, ]. Likewise, the downtack may be added
to specify an approximant realization, [, ].
(The bilabial approximant and dental approximant do not have dedicated
symbols either and are transcribed in a similar fashion: [, ]. However, the
base letters are understood to specifically refer to the fricatives.)
Pseudo-fricatives[edit]
[h] voiceless glottal transition, as in English hat
[] breathy-voiced glottal transition
In many languages, such as English, the glottal "fricatives" are unaccompanied
phonation states of the glottis, without any accompanying manner, fricative or
otherwise. However, in languages such as Arabic, they are true fricatives.[2]
In addition, [] is usually called a "voiceless labial-velar fricative", but it is
actually an approximant. True doubly-articulated fricatives may not occur in
any language; but see voiceless palatal-velar fricative for a putative (and
rather controversial) example.
Aspirated fricatives[edit]
Fricatives are very commonly voiced, though cross-linguistically voiced
fricatives are not nearly as common as tenuis ("plain") fricatives. Other
phonations are common in languages that have those phonations in their stop
consonants. However, phonemically aspirated fricatives are rare. [s] contrasts
with [s] in Korean; aspirated fricatives are also found in a few Sino-Tibetan
languages, in some Oto-Manguean languages, and in the Siouan language Ofo
(/s/ and /f/). The record may be Cone Tibetan, which has four contrastive
aspirated fricatives: /s/ //, //, and /x/.[3]
Languages[edit]
H is not a fricative in English (see /h/). The other fricatives come in voicelessvoiced pairs: /f v, , s z, /.
Ubykh may be the language with the most fricatives (29 not including /h/),
some of which do not have dedicated symbols or diacritics in the IPA. This
number actually outstrips the number of all consonants in English (which has
24 consonants). By contrast, approximately 8.7% of the world's languages
display no phonemic fricatives at all.[4] This is a typical feature of Australian
Aboriginal languages, where the few fricatives that exist result from changes to
plosives or approximants, but also occurs in some indigenous languages of
New Guinea and South America that have especially small numbers of
consonants. However, whereas [h] is entirely unknown in indigenous Australian
languages, most of the other languages without true fricatives do have [h] in
their consonant inventory.
Voicing contrasts in fricatives are largely confined to Europe, Africa, and
Western Asia. Languages of South and East Asia, such as the Dravidian and
Austronesian languages, typically do not have such voiced fricatives as [z] and
[v], which are very familiar to European speakers. These voiced fricatives are
also relatively rare in indigenous languages of the Americas. Overall, voicing
contrasts in fricatives are much rarer than in plosives, being found only in
about a third of the world's languages as compared to 60 percent for plosive
voicing contrasts.[5]

About 15 percent of the world's languages, however, have unpaired voiced

fricatives, i.e. a voiced fricative without a voiceless counterpart. Two-thirds of
these, or 10 percent of all languages, have unpaired voiced fricatives but no
voicing contrast between any fricative pair.[6]
This phenomenon occurs because voiced fricatives have developed from
lenition of plosives or fortition of approximants. This phenomenon of unpaired
voiced fricatives is scattered throughout the world, but is confined to
nonsibilant fricatives with the exception of a couple of languages that have []
but lack []. (Relatedly, several languages have the voiced affricate [d] but
lack [t].) The fricatives that occur most often without a voiceless counterpart
are, in order of ratio of unpaired occurrences to total occurrences, [], [], [],
[] and [].
Plosives a plosive is a consonant characterized by a complete obstruction of
the outgoing airstream by the articulators, a build up of air pressure in the
mouth, and finally a release of that pressure. A stop is merely the first part of
this sound (the stopping of the airstream). In other words, in producing these
sounds, the air is stopped for a brief moment (say pop over and over and pay
attention to whats happening). There are three types of plosive in English.
For an interactive example of each sound (including descriptive animation and
video), click this link, then in the window that opens, click stops, and select the
appropriate sound.
/p/ /b/ bilabial plosives
A bilabial (from bi- two and labia lip) plosive is a sound in which the flow of air
out of the body is interrupted by closing the lips together. English has two
bilabial plosives /p/ in which the vocal chords are not used (voiceless) as in
pizza and pepper, and /b/ in which they are used as in boy and trouble.
/t/ /d/ lingua-alveolar plosives
A lingua-alveolar (from lingua tongue and alveola the ridge just behind the
front upper teeth) plosive is a sound in which the flow of air out of the body is
interrupted by touching the tongue to the alveolar ridge the part of the roof
of the mouth, just behind the upper front teeth. English has two lingua-alveolar
plosives voiceless /t/ as in top and must, and /d/ which is voiced as in dog
and troubled.
/k/ /g/ lingua-velar plosives
A lingua-velar (from lingua tongue and velar the velum or soft palate) plosive is
a sound in which the flow of air out of the body is interrupted by touching the
back of the tongue to the velum the soft part of the roof of the mouth
farthest from the front teeth; its about as far back in the mouth as can be
reached with the tip of the tongue. English has two lingua-velar plosives
voiceless /k/ as in cook and ask, and /g/ which is voiced as in dog and good.
Aspiration aspiration refers to the release of air at the end of a consonant
sound. Plosives are naturally aspirated (because air is released following the
stop portion of the sound. Linguists often use the term aspiration only to refer
to strong puffs of voiceless air after a plosive. Sometimes the term aspirated
stop is employed, but this is a misnomer as stops cannot be aspirated
(aspirated stops thus being plosives). Regardless of aspiration though, the
procedures for producing sounds are the same, thus aspirated /p/ is not
annotated differently from non-aspirated /p/.

Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching

each other but not narrowly enough[1] nor with enough articulatory
precision[2] to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between
fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce
no turbulence.[3] This class of sounds includes lateral approximants like [l] (as
in less), non-lateral approximants like [] (as in rest), and semivowels like [j]
and [w] (as in yes and west, respectively).[3]
Before Peter Ladefoged coined the term "approximant" in the 1960s[4] the
term "frictionless continuant" referred to non-lateral approximants.
Contents [hide]
1 Semivowels
2 Approximants versus fricatives
3 Central approximants
4 Lateral approximants
5 Coarticulated approximants with dedicated IPA symbols
6 Voiceless approximants
7 Nasal approximants
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
Semivowels[edit]
Main article: Semivowel
Some approximants resemble vowels in acoustic and articulatory properties
and the terms semivowel and glide are often used for these non-syllabic vowellike segments. The correlation between semivowels and vowels is strong
enough that cross-language differences between semivowels correspond with
the differences between their related vowels.[5]
Vowels and their corresponding semivowels alternate in many languages
depending on the phonological environment, or for grammatical reasons, as is
the case with Indo-European ablaut. Similarly, languages often avoid
configurations where a semivowel precedes its corresponding vowel.[6] A
number of phoneticians distinguish between semivowels and approximants by
their location in a syllable. Although he uses the terms interchangeably,
Montreuil (2004:104) remarks that, for example, the final glides of English par
and buy differ from French par ('through') and baille ('tub') in that, in the latter
pair, the approximants appear in the syllable coda, whereas, in the former,
they appear in the syllable nucleus. This means that opaque (if not minimal)
contrasts can occur in languages like Italian (with the i-like sound of piede
'foot', appearing in the nucleus: [piede], and that of piano 'slow', appearing in
the syllable onset: [pjano])[7] and Spanish (with a near minimal pair being
abyecto [ajekto] 'abject' and abierto [aierto] 'opened').[8]
Approximant-vowel correspondences[9][10]
Vowel Corresponding
approximant Place of
articulation Example
i
j**
Palatal
Spanish amplo ('I extend') vs. ampliamos ('we
extend')
y

Labiopalatal French aigu ('sharp') vs. aiguille ('needle')


** Velar Korean sseuda [sda] ('to wear') vs. ssuiuda
[siuda] ('to make s.o. wear')
u
w
Labiovelar Spanish acto ('I act') vs. actuamos ('we act')

Retroflex*
English waiter vs. waitress

Pharyngeal [example needed]

^* Because of the articulatory complexities of the American English rhotic,
there is some variation in its phonetic description. A transcription with the IPA
character for an alveolar approximant ([]) is common, though the sound is
more postalveolar. Actual retroflexion may occur as well and both occur as
variations of the same sound.[11] However, Catford (1988:161f) makes a
distinction between the vowels of American English (which he calls
"rhotacized") and vowels with "retroflexion" such as those that appear in
Badaga; Trask (1996:310), on the other hand, labels both as r-colored and
notes that both have a lowered third formant.[12]
^** Because the vowels [i ] are articulated with spread lips, spreading is
implied for their approximant analogues, [j ]. However, these sounds
generally have little or no lip-spreading. The fricative letters with a lowering
diacritic, , may therefore be justified for a neutral articulation between
spread [j ] and rounded [ w].[13]
In articulation and often diachronically, palatal approximants correspond to
front vowels, velar approximants to back vowels, and labialized approximants
to rounded vowels. In American English, the rhotic approximant corresponds to
the rhotic vowel. This can create alternations (as shown in the above table).
In addition to alternations, glides can be inserted to the left or the right of their
corresponding vowels when occurring next to a hiatus.[14] For example, in
Ukrainian, medial /i/ triggers the formation of an inserted [j] that acts as a
syllable onset so that when the affix /-ist/ is added to ('football') to
make 'football player', it's pronounced [futbolist] but
('Maoist'), with the same affix, is pronounced [maojist] with a glide.[15] Dutch
has a similar process that extends to mid vowels:[16]
bioscoop [bijskop] ('cinema')
zee + en [zej(n)] ('seas')
fluor [flyr] ('fluor')
reu + en [r(n)] ('male dogs')
Rwanda [ruand] ('Rwanda')[17]
Boaz [boas] ('Boaz')[17]
Similarly, vowels can be inserted next to their corresponding glide in certain
phonetic environments. Sievers' law describes this behaviour for Germanic.
Non-high semivowels also occur. In colloquial Nepali speech, a process of glideformation occurs, wherein one of two adjacent vowels becomes non-syllabic;
this process includes mid vowels so that [doa] ('cause to wish') features a
non-syllabic mid vowel.[18] Spanish features a similar process and even
nonsyllabic /a/ can occur so that ahorita ('right away') is pronounced [aoita].
[19] It is not often clear, however, whether such sequences involve a
semivowel (a consonant) or a diphthong (a vowel), and in many cases that
may not be a meaningful distinction.
Although many languages have central vowels [, ], which lie between
back/velar [, u] and front/palatal [i, y], there are few cases of a corresponding
approximant [ ]. One is in the Korean diphthong [ i] or [i],[20] though this is
more frequently analyzed as velar (as in the table above), and Mapudungun

may be another: It has three high vowel sounds, /i/, /u/, // and three
corresponding consonants, /j/, and /w/, and a third one is often described as a
voiced unrounded velar fricative; some texts note a correspondence between
this approximant and // that is parallel to /j//i/ and /w//u/. An example is liq /
li/ ([li]?) ('white').[21]
Approximants versus fricatives[edit]
In addition to less turbulence, approximants also differ from fricatives in the
precision required to produce them.[22] When emphasized, approximants may
be slightly fricated (that is, the airstream may become slightly turbulent),
which is reminiscent of fricatives. For example, the Spanish word ayuda ('help')
features a palatal approximant that is pronounced as a fricative in emphatic
speech.[23] Spanish can be analyzed as having a meaningful distinction
between fricative, approximant, and intermediate / j/.[24] However, such
frication is generally slight and intermittent, unlike the strong turbulence of
fricative consonants.
Because voicelessness has comparatively reduced resistance to air flow from
the lungs, the increased air flow creates more turbulence, making acoustic
distinctions between voiceless approximants (which are extremely rare crosslinguistically[25]) and voiceless fricatives difficult.[26] This is why, for example,
the voiceless labialized velar approximant [w] (also transcribed with the special
letter ) has traditionally been labeled a fricative, and no language is known
to contrast it with a voiceless labialized velar fricative [x].[27] Similarly,
Standard Tibetan has a voiceless lateral approximant, [l], and Welsh has a
voiceless lateral fricative [], but the distinction is not always clear from
descriptions of these languages. Again, no language is known to contrast the
two.[27] Iaai is reported to have an unusually large number of voiceless
approximants, with /l w/.
For places of articulation further back in the mouth, languages do not contrast
voiced fricatives and approximants. Therefore the IPA allows the symbols for
the voiced fricatives to double for the approximants, with or without a lowering
diacritic.
Occasionally, the glottal "fricatives" are called approximants, since [h] typically
has no more frication than voiceless approximants, but they are often
phonations of the glottis without any accompanying manner or place of
articulation.
Central approximants[edit]
bilabial approximant [] (usually transcribed )
labiodental approximant []
dental approximant [] (usually transcribed )
alveolar approximant []
retroflex approximant [] (a consonantal [])
palatal approximant [j] (a consonantal [i])
velar approximant [] (a consonantal [])
uvular approximant [] (usually transcribed )
pharyngeal approximant [] (a consonantal []; usually transcribed )
Lateral approximants[edit]
In lateral approximants, the center of tongue makes solid contact with the roof
of the mouth. However, the defining location is the side of the tongue, which
only approaches the teeth.

voiceless alveolar lateral approximant [l]

voiced alveolar lateral approximant [l]
retroflex lateral approximant []
voiceless palatal lateral approximant []
voiced palatal lateral approximant []
velar lateral approximant []
uvular lateral approximant []
Coarticulated approximants with dedicated IPA symbols[edit]
labialized velar approximant [w] (a consonantal [u])
labialized palatal approximant [] or [j] (a consonantal [y])
Voiceless approximants[edit]
Voiceless approximants are rarely distinguished from voiceless fricatives. Some
of them are:
voiceless alveolar lateral approximant [l]
voiceless palatal approximant [ ]
voiceless labialized palatal approximant [] or [ ]
voiceless labialized velar approximant [] or [w]
voiceless glottal approximant [h]
voiceless nasal glottal approximant [hh]
Nasal approximants[edit]
(Not to be confused with 'nasal continuant', which is a synonym for nasal
occlusive)
Examples are:
nasal palatal approximant []
nasal labio-velar approximant [w ]
voiceless nasal glottal approximant [hh]