Voicelessness
 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (August 2008) |
| Voiceless | |
|---|---|
| ◌̥ | |
| Encoding | |
| Entity (decimal) | ̥ |
| Unicode (hex) | U+0325 |
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies voicing and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation.
The
Voiceless vowels and other sonorants
Sonorants are sounds such as vowels and nasals that are voiced in most of the world's languages. However, in some languages sonorants may be voiceless, usually allophonically. For example, the Japanese word sukiyaki is pronounced [sɯ̥kijaki] and may sound like [skijaki] to an English speaker, but the lips can be seen to compress for the [ɯ̥]. Something similar happens in English words like peculiar [pʰə̥ˈkj̊uːliɚ] and potato [pʰə̥ˈtʰeɪ̯ɾoʊ̯].
Voiceless vowels are also an areal feature in languages of the
Sonorants may also be contrastively, not just environmentally, voiceless.
In
Contrastively voiceless vowels have been reported several times without ever being verified (L&M 1996:315).
Lack of voicing contrast in obstruents
Many languages lack a distinction between voiced and voiceless
In many such languages, obstruents are realized as voiced in voiced environments, such as between vowels or between a vowel and a nasal, and voiceless elsewhere, such as at the beginning or end of the word or next to another obstruent. That is the case in Dravidian and Australian languages and in Korean but not in Mandarin or Polynesian. Usually, the variable sounds are transcribed with the voiceless IPA letters, but for Australian languages, the letters for voiced consonants are often used.
It appears that voicelessness is not a single phenomenon in such languages. In some, such as the Polynesian languages, the vocal folds are required to actively open to allow an unimpeded (silent) airstream, which is sometimes called a breathed phonation (not to be confused with breathy voice). In others, such as many Australian languages, voicing ceases during the hold of a stop (few Australian languages have any other kind of obstruent) because airflow is insufficient to sustain it, and if the vocal folds open, that is only from passive relaxation.
Thus, Polynesian stops are reported to be held for longer than Australian stops and are seldom voiced, but Australian stops are prone to having voiced variants (L&M 1996:53), and the languages are often represented as having no phonemically voiceless consonants at all.
In Southeast Asia, when stops occur at the end of a word, they are voiceless because the glottis is closed, not open, so they are said to be unphonated (have no phonation) by some phoneticians, who considered "breathed" voicelessness to be a phonation.[2]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Stop
|
b | d
|
ɟ | ɡ | |
| Nasal | m | n
|
ɲ | ŋ | |
| Lateral | l
|
||||
| Rhotic | r
|
ɽ | |||
| Semivowel | j | w |
Yidiny consonants, with no underlyingly voiceless consonants, are posited.[3]
References
- ^ E.g. Bondarko, Verbickaja & Gordina (1991) Osnovy obščej fonetiki. St. Petersburg University Press.
- ^ Jerold Edmondson, John Esling, Jimmy Harris, and James Wei, "A phonetic study of the Sui consonants and tones" Archived 2009-02-05 at the Wayback Machine Mon–Khmer Studies 34:47–66
- R. M. W. Dixon. (1977). A Grammar of Yidiny. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Further reading
- ISBN 0-631-19815-6.