Everything about Postalveolar Consonant totally explained
Postalveolar consonants are
consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the
back of the
alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the mouth than the
alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard
palate (the place of articulation for
palatal consonants).
Among the
fricatives and
affricates, a subtype called
palato-alveolar consonants (see below) are shown with examples in the table. The
alveolo-palatal and
retroflex consonants are also postalveolar in their point of articulation, but they're given separate columns in the IPA chart, and illustrated with examples in their own articles.
The palato-alveolar
sibilants and postalveolar clicks identified by the
International Phonetic Alphabet are:
Types of postalveolar fricatives and affricates
The difference between
palato-alveolar,
alveolo-palatal,
retroflex, and several other articulations is in the shape of the tongue rather than the location of the contact with the roof of the mouth. All are postalveolar in that sense.
One variable in tongue shape is whether the contact occurs with the very tip of the tongue (an "
apical" articulation [ʃ̺]); with the surface just above the tip, called the
blade of the tongue (a "
laminal" articulation [ʃ̻]); or with the underside of the tip (a "
sub-apical" articulation). Laminal articulations are often
palatal, but may have postalveolar
allophones.
]
]
A second variable is the amount of raising of the tongue behind this point of contact, which amounts to a degree of
palatalization. From least to most palatalized, the attested possibilities are
flat [s̠], bunched-up or
domed palato-alveolar [ʃ], and alveolo-palatal [ɕ]. Of course, these possibilities may all be
voiced as well: [z̠,ʒ, ʑ].
There is an additional postalveolar articulation found in
Circassian languages such as
Ubyx: the tip of the tongue rests against the lower teeth so that there's no sublingual cavity. Ladefoged has called this a "
closed laminal postalveolar" articulation; Catford describes the fricatives as "hissing-hushing" sounds, and transcribes them as [ŝ,ẑ] (
note: this isn't IPA notation). Presumably this "closed" articulation may be combined with the other two as a third variable, but this isn't attested.
The attested possibilities, with exemplar languages, are as follows. Note that the IPA diacritics are simplified; some articulations would require two diacritics to be fully specified, but only one is used in order to keep the results legible without the need for
OpenType IPA fonts. Also,
Ladefoged has resurrected an obsolete IPA symbol, the under dot, to indicate
apical postalveolar (normally included in the category of
retroflex consonants), and that notation is used here. (Note that the notation s̠, ṣ is sometimes reversed; either may also be called 'retroflex' and written ʂ.)
| IPA |
Place of articulation |
Exemplifying languages |
| [s̠ z̠] |
laminal flat postalveolar (laminal retroflex) |
Mandarin sh, zh, ch, Polish sz, rz, cz, ż |
| [ṣ ẓ] |
apical postalveolar (apical retroflex) |
Ubyx, Toda |
| [ʃ ʒ] |
domed postalveolar (palato-alveolar) |
English sh, zh (may be either laminal or apical) |
| [ʃ̻ ʒ̻] |
laminal domed postalveolar |
Toda |
| [ɕ ʑ] |
laminal palatalized postalveolar (alveolo-palatal) |
Mandarin q, j, x, Polish ć, ś, ź, dź, Ubyx |
| [ŝ ẑ] |
laminal closed postalveolar |
Ubyx |
| [ʂ ʐ] |
sub-apical postalveolar or palatal (sub-apical retroflex) |
Toda |
Other postalveolars
Some languages which distinguish "dental" vs. "alveolar" stops have something closer to prealveolar and postalveolar. Such is the case for
Malayalam speakers who trill both of that language's
rhotics: [r̟] vs. [r̠]. Since these are trills and therefore both apical, the latter is usually termed
retroflex.
However, in some non-standard forms of Malayalam, there's a laminal postalveolar nasal that contrasts with apical alveolar, palatal, and subapical retroflex nasals: m n̟ n͇ n̠ ɳ ɲ ŋ.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Postalveolar Consonant'.
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