Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative

Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative
ɕ
IPA Number182
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)ɕ
Unicode (hex)U+0255
X-SAMPAs\
Braille⠦ (braille pattern dots-236)⠉ (braille pattern dots-14)

The voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɕ⟩ ("c", plus the curl also found in its voiced counterpart ⟨ʑ⟩). It is the sibilant equivalent of the voiceless palatal fricative, and as such it can be transcribed in IPA with ⟨ç˖⟩.

Features

alveolo-palatal sibilant fricatives

Features of the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative:

In English

In British Received Pronunciation, /j/ after syllable-initial /p, t, k/ (as in Tuesday) is realized as a devoiced palatal fricative. The amount of devoicing is variable, but the fully voiceless variant tends to be alveolo-palatal in the /tj/ sequence: . It is a fricative, rather than a fricative element of an affricate because the preceding plosive remains alveolar, rather than becoming alveolo-palatal, as in Dutch.

The corresponding affricate can be written with ⟨t̠ʲ͡ɕ⟩ or ⟨c̟͡ɕ⟩ in narrow IPA, though ⟨tɕ⟩ is normally used in both cases. In the case of English, the sequence can be specified as ⟨t̺ɕ⟩ as /t/ is normally apical (although somewhat palatalized in that sequence), whereas alveolo-palatal consonants are laminal by definition.

An increasing number of British speakers merge this sequence with the voiceless palato-alveolar affricate /tʃ/: (see yod-coalescence), mirroring Cockney, Australian English and New Zealand English. On the other hand, there is an opposite tendency in Canadian accents that have preserved /tj/, where the sequence tends to merge with the plain /t/ instead: (see yod-dropping), mirroring General American which does not allow /j/ to follow alveolar consonants in stressed syllables.

Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Adyghe щы/šə 'three'
Assamese ব্ৰিটিছ/British 'British'
Bengali শকুন 'Vulture' May be transliterated as ʃ
Catalan caixa 'box' See Catalan phonology
Chinese Some Hokkien dialects /sin 'heart' Allophone of /s/ before /i/.
Mandarin 西安/Xī'ān 'Xi'an' Complementary distribution allophone of /ʂ/ in front of high front vowels and palatal glides. See Mandarin phonology.
Chuvash çиçĕм/şişĕm 'lightning' Contrasts with /ʂ/ and /s/. Lenis when intervocalic.
Danish sjæl 'soul' See Danish phonology
Dutch Some speakers sjabloon 'template' May be or instead. See Dutch phonology
English Cardiff human 'human' Phonetic realization of /hj/. More front and more strongly fricated than RP . Broad varieties drop the /h/: . See English phonology
Conservative Received Pronunciation tuesday 'Tuesday' Allophone of /j/ after syllable-initial /t/ (which is alveolar in this sequence), may be only partially devoiced. /tj/ is often realized as an affricate in British English. Mute in General American: . Typically transcribed with ⟨j⟩ in broad IPA. See English phonology, yod-coalescence and yod-dropping
Some Canadian English
Ghanaian ship 'ship' Educated speakers may use , to which this phone corresponds in other dialects.
Guarani Paraguayan che 'I'
Hindi शनिवार Saturday Sometimes may be transliterated as 'ʃ'
Japanese /shio 'salt' See Japanese phonology
Korean 시/詩/si 'poem' See Korean phonology.
Kabardian щэ/ščè 'hundred'
Lower Sorbian pśijaśel 'friend'
Luxembourgish liicht 'light' Allophone of /χ/ after phonologically front vowels; some speakers merge it with . See Luxembourgish phonology
Marathi शेतकरी/shetkari 'farmer' Contrasts with . Allophone of . See Marathi phonology.
Malayalam കുരിശ്/kuriś 'Cross' See Malayalam phonology
Norwegian Urban East kjekk 'handsome' Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ç⟩; less often realized as palatal . Younger speakers in Bergen, Stavanger and Oslo merge it with /ʂ/. See Norwegian phonology
Polish śruba 'screw' Contrasts with /ʂ/ and /s/. See Polish phonology
Portuguese mexendo 'moving' Also described as palato-alveolar . See Portuguese phonology
Romani Kalderash ćhavo 'Romani boy; son' Realized as in conservative dialects.
Romanian Transylvanian dialects ce 'what' Realized as in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Russian счастье/schast'e 'happiness' Also represented by ⟨щ⟩. Contrasts with /ʂ/, /s/, and /sʲ/. See Russian phonology
Sema ashi 'meat' Possible allophone of /ʃ/ before /i, e/.
Serbo-Croatian Croatian miš će 'the mouse will' Allophone of /ʃ/ before /t͡ɕ, d͡ʑ/. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Some speakers of Montenegrin с́утра/śutra 'tomorrow' Phonemically /sj/ or, in some cases, /s/.
Swedish Finland sjok 'chunk' Allophone of /ɧ/.
Sweden kjol 'skirt' See Swedish phonology
Tibetan Lhasa dialect བཞི་/bzhi 'four' Contrasts with /ʂ/.
Tatar өчпочмак/өçpoçmaq 'triangle'
Uzbek
Xumi Lower 'one hundred'
Upper
Yámana (Yahgan) Šúša 'penguin'
Yi /xi 'thread'
Zhuang cib 'ten'

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Collins & Mees (2003:172–173), Cruttenden (2014:229–231). The first source specifies the place of articulation of /j/ after /t/ as more front than the main allophone of /j/.
  2. ^ Cruttenden (2014), p. 177.
  3. ^ Esling (2010), p. 693.
  4. ^ a b Collins & Mees (2003), pp. 173, 306.
  5. ^ a b Cruttenden (2014), pp. 230–231.
  6. ^ a b c Chambers, J.K. (1998). "Changes in progress in Canadian English: Yod-dropping". Journal of English Linguistics. Excerpts from article "Social embedding of changes in progress". 26. Canada: U.Toronto. Archived from the original on 29 February 2008. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  7. ^ Recasens & Espinosa (2007:145, 167)
  8. ^ a b Collins & Mees (1990), p. 90.
  9. ^ a b Huber (2004:859)
  10. ^ Okada (1999:117)
  11. ^ Zygis (2003), pp. 180–181.
  12. ^ a b Gilles & Trouvain (2013), pp. 67–68.
  13. ^ a b Kristoffersen (2000), p. 23.
  14. ^ Jassem (2003:103)
  15. ^ Mateus & d'Andrade (2000)
  16. ^ Silva (2003:32)
  17. ^ Guimarães (2004)
  18. ^ Cruz-Ferreira (1995:91)
  19. ^ Medina (2010)
  20. ^ Boretzky & Igla (1994:XVI–XVII)
  21. ^ Pop (1938), p. 29.
  22. ^ a b Teo (2012:368)
  23. ^ a b Landau et al. (1999:68)
  24. ^ Sjoberg (1963:11)
  25. ^ Chirkova & Chen (2013), p. 365.
  26. ^ Chirkova, Chen & Kocjančič Antolík (2013), p. 382.

Sources

External links