Uvular consonant

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Uvulars are

advanced tongue root,[1] and they often cause retraction
of neighboring vowels.

Uvular consonants in IPA

The uvular consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA Description Example
Language Orthography IPA Meaning
ɴ̥ voiceless uvular nasal Lamo [
example needed
]
ɴ voiced uvular nasal Bai (Luobenzhuo dialect)[2] 我/nò [ɴɔ˦˨] 'I'
q voiceless uvular plosive
Arabic
قصّةٌ qiṣṣatun [qisˤˈsˤɑtun] 'a story'
ɢ voiced uvular plosive Inuktitut utirama [ʔutiɢama] 'because I return'
q͡χ voiceless uvular affricate Kabardian кхъэ [q͡χa] 'grave'
ɢ͡ʁ voiced uvular affricate
Ekagi[3]
gaati [ɢ͡ʁaːti] 'ten'
χ voiceless uvular fricative Peninsular Spanish enjuto [ẽ̞ɴˈχut̪o̞] 'skinny'
ʁ voiced uvular fricative French rester [ʁɛste] 'to stay'
ʁ̞
voiced uvular approximant
Danish[4] rød [ʁ̞œ̠ð̠] 'red'
ʟ̠ voiced uvular lateral approximant English (some American speakers[5]) wool [wʊʟ̠] 'wool'
ɢ̆
voiced uvular flap
Hiw[6] [βɔ̞ʀ̆] 'hibiscus'
ʀ̥ voiceless uvular trill French
(Belgian)[7]
triste [t̪ʀ̥is̪t̪œ] 'sad'
ʀ voiced uvular trill French
(20th century Paris accent)
Paris [paˈʀi] 'Paris'
ʀ̆ voiced uvular tap or flap Yiddish בריק [bʀ̆ɪk] 'bridge'
uvular ejective stop
Quechua
q'allu aʎu] 'section, piece, slice, sauce'
q͡χʼ uvular ejective affricate Georgian ოფა q'opa [q͡χʼɔpʰɑ] 'being/existence'
χʼ uvular ejective fricative Tlingit[8] 'aan [χʼàːn] 'fire'
ʛ voiced uvular implosive Konso[9] pogoota [poʛoːta] 'mandible'
ʛ̥ (ʠ) voiceless uvular implosive Mam[10] q'ootj [ʛ̥oːtʰχ] 'dough'

Descriptions in different languages

Uvular consonants are produced near marker 9.

Muslim rule for long periods of time, such as Punjabi.[13]

The

velum
, against or near the uvula. The most familiar use will doubtless be in the transliteration of Arabic place names such as Qatar and Iraq into English, though, since English lacks this sound, this is generally pronounced as [k], the most similar sound that occurs in English.

[qʼ], the uvular ejective, is found in Ubykh, Tlingit, Cusco Quechua, and some others. In Georgian, the existence of this phoneme is debatable, since the general realization of the letter "ყ" is /χʼ/. This is due to /qʰ/ merging with /χ/ and therefore /qʼ/ being influenced by this merger and becoming /χʼ/.

[ɢ], the

velar nasal
.

The voiceless uvular fricative [χ] is similar to the voiceless velar fricative [x], except that it is articulated near the uvula. It is found in Georgian, and instead of [x] in some dialects of German, Spanish, and colloquial Arabic, as well as in some Dutch varieties and in standard Afrikaans.

Uvular flaps have been reported for

Kube (Trans–New Guinea), Hamtai (Angan family), and for the variety of Khmer spoken in Battambang province
.

The Enqi dialect of the Bai language has an unusually complete series of uvular consonants consisting of the stops /q/, /qʰ/ and /ɢ/, the fricatives /χ/ and /ʁ/, and the nasal /ɴ/.[14] All of these contrast with a corresponding velar consonant of the same manner of articulation.[14] The existence of the uvular nasal is especially unusual, even more so than the existence of the voiced stop.

The Tlingit language of the Alaska Panhandle has ten uvular consonants, all of which are voiceless obstruents:

Uvulars in Tlingit[15]
Description Orthographic IPA Gloss
tenuis stop ákw qákʷ 'tree spine'
aspirated stop ákw ákʷ 'basket'
ejective stop ḵʼákw akʷ 'screech owl'
labialized tenuis stop náaḵw náa 'octopus'
labialized aspirated stop ḵwáan qʷʰáan 'people, tribe'
labialized ejective stop ḵʼwátl qʷʼátɬ 'cooking pot'
voiceless fricative aakw χaakʷ 'fingernail'
ejective fricative x̱ʼáakw χʼáakʷ 'freshwater sockeye salmon'
labialized voiceless fricative x̱wastáa χʷastáa 'canvas, denim'
labialized ejective fricative x̱wʼáalʼ χʷʼáaɬʼ 'down (feathers)'

And the extinct Ubykh language of Turkey has twenty.

Phonological representation

In featural phonology, uvular consonants are most often considered to contrast with velar consonants in terms of being [–high] and [+back]. Prototypical uvulars also appear to be [-ATR].[1]

Two variants can then be established. Since palatalized consonants are [-back], the appearance of palatalized uvulars in a few languages such as Ubykh is difficult to account for. According to Vaux (1999), they possibly hold the features [+high], [-back], [-ATR], the last being the distinguishing feature from a palatalized velar consonant.

Uvular rhotics

The uvular

uvular approximant
[ʁ̞].

As with most trills, uvular trills are often reduced to a single contact, especially between vowels.

Unlike other uvular consonants, the uvular trill is articulated without a retraction of the tongue, and therefore doesn't lower neighboring high vowels the way uvular stops commonly do.

Several other languages, including Inuktitut, Abkhaz, Uyghur and some varieties of Arabic, have a voiced uvular fricative but do not treat it as a rhotic consonant. However, Modern Hebrew and some modern varieties of Arabic also both have at least one uvular fricative that is considered non-rhotic, and one that is considered rhotic.[citation needed]

In Lakhota the uvular trill is an allophone of the voiced uvular fricative before /i/.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b Vaux, Bert (1999). "A Note on Pharyngeal Features". Harvard Working Papers in Linguistics.
  2. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.692.4221
    .
  3. ^ Staroverov, Peter; Tebay, Soren (2019). "Posterior Affricate in Mee and Consonant-Vowel Place Interactions". Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Meeting on Phonology. LSA.
  4. ^ Basbøll (2005:66)
  5. ^ Cruttenden (2014), p. 221.
  6. ^ François (2005), p. 44.
  7. ^ Demolin (2001), pp. 65, 67–68, 70–71.
  8. ^ "Phoible 2.0 -".
  9. ^ Orkaydo (2013).
  10. OCLC 748935484
    .
  11. .
  12. ^ Watters (2005).
  13. from the original on 9 February 2018. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
  14. ^ a b Feng, Wang (2006). "Comparison of Languages in Contact: The Distillation Method and the Case of Bai" (PDF). Language and Linguistics Monograph Series B. Frontiers in Linguistics III.
  15. JSTOR 30028779
    .

References