Laminal consonant
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|
Laminal | |
---|---|
◌̻ | |
IPA Number | 410 |
Encoding | |
Entity (decimal) | ̻ |
Unicode (hex) | U+033B |
A laminal consonant is a
Compared to apical
Some languages contrast laminal and apical sounds:
- The contrast is common in fricatives.
- Some languages in Malayalamhas a three-way distinction between laminal dental, apical alveolar and true subapical retroflex in nasal and voiceless oral stops.
- Basque and Mirandese differentiate between laminal and apical sibilants in the alveolar region; Mandarin Chinese,[4] Serbo-Croatian, and Polish make such a distinction with postalveolar consonants.
- Some native languages of California have the distinction in both stops and fricatives.
- Dahalo makes the distinction only in its stops.
Because laminal consonants use the flat of the tongue, they cover a broader area of contact than apical consonants. Laminal consonants in some languages have been recorded with a broad occlusion (closure) that covers all the front of the mouth from the hard palate to the teeth, which makes it difficult to compare the two. Alveolar laminals and apicals are two different articulations.
A very common laminal articulation is sometimes called denti-alveolar. It spans the alveolar ridge to the teeth but is a little farther forward than other alveolar laminal consonants, which cover more of the alveolar ridge and might be considered postalveolar. This occurs in French.
Compared to alveolar
Part of the confusion in naming laminal consonants is quite literally a matter of point of view. When one looks at a person pronouncing a laminal alveolar or denti-alveolar, the tip of the tongue can be seen touching the back of the teeth or even protruding between the teeth, which gives them the common name of dental.
There are true laminal dentals in some languages with no alveolar contact, such as in Hindustani, which are different from French consonants. Nevertheless, the breadth of contact has some importance; it influences the shape of the tongue farther back and so the shape of the resonant cavity. Also, if the release of a denti-alveolar consonant is not abrupt, the tongue may peel off from the roof of the mouth from back to front and so shift from an alveolar to a dental pronunciation.
In the IPA, the diacritic for laminal consonants is U+033B ◌̻ COMBINING SQUARE BELOW.
See also
- Apical consonant
- Subapical consonant
- Coronal consonant
- List of phonetic topics
References
- ^ Catford (1977), p. 152.
- ^ Gafos (1997), p. 129.
- ^ Dart & Nihalani (1999), p. 133.
- ^ "The Articulation of the Coronal Sounds in the Peking Dialect" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-07-24. Retrieved 2014-08-26.
Bibliography
- Catford, J.C. (1977). Fundamental problems in phonetics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
- Gafos, Diamandis (1997). "A Cross-Sectional View of s, ʃ, θ". Proceedings of the North East Linguistics Society. 27.
- Dart, Sarah N. (1991). Articulatory and Acoustic Properties of Apical and Laminal Articulations. Working Papers in Phonetics. Vol. 79.
- Dart, Sarah N.; Nihalani, Paroo (1999). "The articulation of Malayalam coronal stops and nasals". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 29 (2). Cambridge University Press: 129–142. S2CID 145638382.
- ISBN 0-631-19815-6.