Plosive
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In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade ([
Terminology
The terms stop, occlusive, and plosive are often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on the distinction being made. The terms refer to different features of the consonant. "Stop" refers to the airflow that is stopped. "Occlusive" refers to the articulation, which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract. "Plosive" refers to the release burst (plosion) of the consonant. Some object to the use of "plosive" for
Either "occlusive" or "stop" may be used as a general term covering the other together with nasals. That is, 'occlusive' may be defined as
what we call simply nasals are called nasal stops by some linguists. We avoid this phrase, preferring to reserve the term 'stop' for sounds in which there is a complete interruption of airflow.
In addition, they restrict "plosive" for pulmonic consonants; "stops" in their usage include ejective and implosive consonants.[2]
If a term such as "plosive" is used for oral non-affricated obstruents, and nasals are not called nasal stops, then a stop may mean the glottal stop; "plosive" may even mean non-glottal stop. In other cases, however, it may be the word "plosive" that is restricted to the glottal stop. Generally speaking, plosives do not have plosion (a release burst). In English, for example, there are plosives with no audible release, such as the /p/ in apt. However, English plosives do have plosion in other environments.
In Ancient Greek, the term for plosive was ἄφωνον (áphōnon),[3] which means "unpronounceable", "voiceless", or "silent", because plosives could not be pronounced without a vowel. This term was calqued into Latin as mūta, and from there borrowed into English as mute.[4] Mute was sometimes used instead for voiceless consonants, whether plosives or fricatives, a usage that was later replaced with surd, from Latin surdus "deaf" or "silent",[5] a term still occasionally seen in the literature.[6] For more information on the Ancient Greek terms, see Ancient Greek phonology § Terminology.
Articulation
A plosive is typically analysed as having up to three phases:
- Approach, during which articulators come together
- Hold (or "occlusion" or "closure"), during which the articulators are held and block the airstream
- Release (or "burst" or "plosion"), when the articulators are separated, releasing the compressed air[7]
Only the hold phase is requisite. A plosive may lack an approach when it is preceded by a consonant that involves an occlusion at the same place of articulation, as in [d] in end or old. In many languages, such as Malay and Vietnamese, word-final plosives lack a release burst, even when followed by a vowel, or have a nasal release. See no audible release.
Nasal occlusives are somewhat similar. In the catch and hold, airflow continues through the nose; in the release, there is no burst, and final nasals are typically unreleased across most languages.
In
Common plosives
All spoken natural languages in the world have plosives,
See Common occlusives for the distribution of both plosives and nasals.
Classification
Voice
have only voiced plosives.
Aspiration
In
Length
In a geminate or long consonant, the occlusion lasts longer than in simple consonants. In languages where plosives are only distinguished by length (e.g., Arabic, Ilwana, Icelandic), the long plosives may be held up to three times as long as the short plosives. Italian is well known for its geminate plosives, as the double t in the name Vittoria takes just as long to say as the ct does in English Victoria. Japanese also prominently features geminate consonants, such as in the minimal pair 来た kita 'came' and 切った kitta 'cut'. Estonian is unusual for contrasting three lengths, as in the minimal triplet kabi /kɑpi/ 'hoof', kapi /kɑpːi/ 'wardrobe [gen. sg.]', and kappi /kɑpːːi/ 'wardrobe [ill. sg.]'.[13]
There are many languages where the features voice, aspiration, and length reinforce each other, and in such cases it may be hard to determine which of these features predominates. In such cases, the terms
Nasalization
Simple
A
A
The terms prenasalization and postnasalization are normally used only in languages where these sounds are phonemic: that is, not analyzed into sequences of plosive plus nasal.
Airstream mechanism
Stops may be made with more than one
Tenseness
A
There are a series of plosives in the Korean language, sometimes written with the IPA symbol for ejectives, which are produced using "stiff voice", meaning there is increased contraction of the glottis than for normal production of voiceless plosives. The indirect evidence for stiff voice is in the following vowels, which have a higher fundamental frequency than those following other plosives. The higher frequency is explained as a result of the glottis being tense. Other such phonation types include breathy voice, or murmur; slack voice; and creaky voice.
Transcription
The following plosives have been given dedicated symbols in the IPA.
⟨p⟩ | voiceless bilabial plosive | ⟨b⟩ | voiced bilabial plosive |
---|---|---|---|
⟨t⟩ | voiceless alveolar plosive
|
⟨d⟩ | voiced alveolar plosive
|
⟨ʈ⟩ | voiceless retroflex plosive | ⟨ɖ⟩ | voiced retroflex plosive |
⟨c⟩ | voiceless palatal plosive | ⟨ɟ⟩ | voiced palatal plosive |
⟨k⟩ | voiceless velar plosive | ⟨ɡ⟩ | voiced velar plosive |
⟨q⟩ | voiceless uvular plosive | ⟨ɢ⟩ | voiced uvular plosive |
⟨ʡ⟩ | epiglottal plosive | ||
⟨ʔ⟩ | glottal stop |
English
[p t k] | voiceless, aspirated word-initially, tenuis in clusters after s, word-final often with no audible release |
---|---|
[b d ɡ] | unaspirated, partially voiced word-initially, fully voiced intervocalically, fully devoiced when word-final |
[ʔ] | glottal stop, not as a phoneme in most dialects |
Variations
Many subclassifications of plosives are transcribed by adding a diacritic or modifier letter to the IPA symbols above.
⟨ t⟩ | voiceless | ⟨ d⟩ | voiced |
---|---|---|---|
⟨t˭⟩ | tenuis | ⟨tʰ⟩ | aspirated |
⟨ dʱ⟩ | breathy-voiced |
⟨t⟩ | ⟨d⟩ | pulmonic egressive | |
---|---|---|---|
⟨tʼ⟩ | ejective | ⟨ɗ⟩ | implosive |
⟨!⟩ | click |
⟨ⁿd⟩ | prenasalized | ⟨dⁿ⟩ | nasally released |
---|
⟨d̥⟩ | lenis: ⟨d⟩ with voicelessness diacritic |
⟨t͈⟩ | tense | ⟨tt dd⟩ ⟨tː dː⟩ |
geminate |
---|
See also
- Continuant (the opposite of a stop)
- List of phonetics topics
- Pop filter
- Nonexplosive stop
References
- ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
- ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
- Perseus Project
- ^ "mute". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- Perseus Project.
- ^ "surd". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ISBN 978-0-415-50650-2.
- ^ König, W. (ed) dtv Atlas zur deutschen Sprache dtv 1994[full citation needed]
- ^ Ulfsbjorninn, Shanti; Lahrouchi, Mohamed. "The Typology of the Distribution of Edge : the propensity for bipositionality". Papers in Historical Phonology. 1. Archived from the original on 2022-02-19 – via HAL-SHS - Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société.
- ^ "Organised Phonology Data - Gadsup ( Ontena dialect) Language [GAJ] - Eastern Highlands Province" (PDF). SIL International. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-03-08.
- ^ "Yanuyuwa". UCLA Phonetics Lab Data. University of California, Los Angeles.
- ^ Cruttenden, Alan Gimsons Pronunciation of English.[full citation needed]
- ^ Türk, Helen; Lippus, Pärtel; Šimko, Juraj (2017). "Context-dependent articulation of consonant gemination in Estonian". Laboratory Phonology. 8 (1): 26.
Further reading
- Ian Maddieson, Patterns of Sounds, ISBN 0-521-26536-3
External links
- Rothenberg M. "The Breath-Stream Dynamics of Simple-Released Plosive Production". Vol. 6. Bibliotheca Phonetica, Karger, Basel, 1968