Palatalization (phonetics)
ʲ
In phonetics, palatalization (/ˌpælətəlaɪˈzeɪʃən/, US also /-lɪ-/) or palatization is a way of pronouncing a consonant in which part of the tongue is moved close to the hard palate. Consonants pronounced this way are said to be palatalized and are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by affixing the letter ⟨ʲ⟩ to the base consonant. Palatalization cannot minimally distinguish words in most dialects of English, but it may do so in languages such as Russian, Japanese, Norwegian (dialects), Võro, Irish and Kashmiri.
Types
In technical terms, palatalization refers to the
Phonetically palatalized consonants may vary in their exact realization. Some languages add semivowels before or after the palatalized consonant (onglides or offglides). In such cases, the vowel (especially a non-front vowel) following a palatalized consonant typically has a palatal onglide. In Russian, both plain and palatalized consonant phonemes are found in words like большой [bɐlʲˈʂoj] ⓘ, царь [tsarʲ] ⓘ and Катя [ˈkatʲə] ⓘ. In Hupa, on the other hand, the palatalization is heard as both an onglide and an offglide. In some cases, the realization of palatalization may change without any corresponding phonemic change. For example, according to Thurneysen,[full citation needed] palatalized consonants at the end of a syllable in Old Irish had a corresponding onglide (reflected as ⟨i⟩ in the spelling), which was no longer present in Middle Irish (based on explicit testimony of grammarians of the time).
In a few languages, including
Transcription
In the
Phonology
Palatalization has varying
Allophonic palatalization
In some languages, like English, palatalization is
Phonemic palatalization
In some languages, palatalization is a distinctive feature that distinguishes two consonant phonemes. This feature occurs in Russian, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic, among others.
Phonemic palatalization may be contrasted with either plain or velarized articulation. In many of the Slavic languages, and some of the Baltic and Finnic languages, palatalized consonants contrast with plain consonants, but in Irish they contrast with velarized consonants.
Some palatalized phonemes undergo change beyond phonetic palatalization. For instance, the unpalatalized sibilant (Irish /sˠ/, Scottish /s̪/) has a palatalized counterpart that is actually
Morphophonemic
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In some languages, palatalization is used as a
In Romanian, consonants are palatalized before /i/. Palatalized consonants appear at the end of the word, and mark the plural in nouns and adjectives, and the second person singular in verbs.[1] On the surface, it would appear then that ban [ban] "coin" forms a minimal pair with bani [banʲ]. The interpretation commonly taken, however, is that an underlying morpheme |-i| palatalizes the consonant and is subsequently deleted.
Palatalization may also occur as a morphological feature. For example, although Russian makes phonemic contrasts between palatalized and unpalatalized consonants, alternations across morpheme boundaries are normal:[2]
- ответ [ɐˈtvʲet]ⓘ ('answer') vs. ответить [ɐˈtvʲetʲɪtʲ]ⓘ ('to answer')
- несу [nʲɪˈsu]ⓘ ('[I] carry') vs. несёт [nʲɪˈsʲɵt]ⓘ ('carries')
- голод [ˈɡolət]ⓘ ('hunger') vs. голоден [ˈɡolədʲɪn] ('hungry' masc.)
Sound changes
In some languages, allophonic palatalization developed into phonemic palatalization by
Phonetic palatalization of a consonant sometimes causes surrounding vowels to change by
Examples
Slavic languages
In many Slavic languages, palatal or palatalized consonants are called soft, and others are called hard. Some of them, like Russian, have numerous pairs of palatalized and unpalatalized consonant phonemes.
Goidelic
Mandarin Chinese
Palatalized consonants occur in standard Mandarin Chinese in the form of the alveolo-palatal consonants, which are written in pinyin as j, q, and x.
Marshallese
In the Marshallese language, each consonant has some type of secondary articulation (palatalization, velarization, or labiovelarization). The palatalized consonants are regarded as "light", and the velarized and rounded consonants are regarded as "heavy", with the rounded consonants being both velarized and labialized.
Norwegian
Many Norwegian dialects have phonemic palatalized consonants. In many parts of Northern Norway and many areas of Møre og Romsdal, for example, the words /hɑnː/ ('hand') and /hɑnʲː/ ('he') are differentiated only by the palatalization of the final consonant. Palatalization is generally realised only on stressed syllables, but speakers of the Sør-Trøndelag dialects will generally palatalize the coda of a determined plural as well: e.g. /hunʲː.ɑnʲ/ or, in other areas, /hʉnʲː.ɑn/ ('the dogs'), rather than */hunʲː.ɑn/. Norwegian dialects utilizing palatalization will generally palatalize /d/, /l/, /n/ and /t/.
See also
- Iotation, a related process in Slavic languages
- Manner of articulation
- List of phonetics topics
- Labio-palatalization
- Palatalization in the Romance languages
- Soft sign, a Cyrillic grapheme indicating palatalization
- Yōon
References
- ^ Chițoran (2001:11)
- ^ See Lightner (1972:9–11, 12–13) for a fuller list of examples.
- ^ Bauer, Michael. Blas na Gàidhlig: The Practical Guide to Gaelic Pronunciation. Glasgow: Akerbeltz, 2011.
Bibliography
- Bynon, Theodora. Historical Linguistics. Cambridge University Press, 1977. ISBN 978-0-521-29188-0(paperback).
- Bhat, D.N.S. (1978), "A General Study of Palatalization", Universals of Human Language, 2: 47–92
- Buckley, E. (2003), "The Phonetic Origin and Phonological Extension of Gallo-Roman Palatalization", Proceedings of the North American Phonology Conferences 1 and 2, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.81.4003
- Chițoran, Ioana (2001), The Phonology of Romanian: A Constraint-based Approach, Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-016766-2
- Crowley, Terry. (1997) An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.
- Lightner, Theodore M. (1972), Problems in the Theory of Phonology, I: Russian phonology and Turkish phonology, Edmonton: Linguistic Research, inc
- Pullum, Geoffrey K.; Ladusaw, William A. (1996). Phonetic Symbol Guide. University of Chicago Press.
External links
- Erkki Savolainen, Internetix 1998. Suomen murteet – Koprinan murretta. (with a sound sample with palatalized t')
- Frisian assibilation as a hypercorrect effect due to a substrate language
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