Voiced_alveolar_approximant

Voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants

Voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants

Consonantal sounds represented by ⟨ɹ⟩ / ⟨ð̠˕⟩ and ⟨ɹ̠⟩ in IPA

The voiced alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the alveolar and postalveolar approximants is ⟨ɹ⟩, a lowercase letter r rotated 180 degrees. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\.

Quick Facts ɹ, ð̠˕ ...
Quick Facts ɹ̠, Audio sample ...

The most common sound represented by the letter r in English is the voiced postalveolar approximant, pronounced a little more back and transcribed more precisely in IPA as ⟨ɹ̠⟩, but ⟨ɹ⟩ is often used for convenience in its place. For further ease of typesetting, English phonemic transcriptions might use the symbol ⟨r⟩ even though this symbol represents the alveolar trill in phonetic transcription.

The bunched or molar r sounds remarkably similar to the postalveolar approximant and can be described as a voiced labial pre-velar approximant with tongue-tip retraction. It can be transcribed in IPA as ⟨ψ⟩[1] or ⟨ɹ̈⟩.

Features

A schematic mid-sagittal section of an articulation of a voiced alveolar approximant [ɹ].
A schematic mid-sagittal section of an articulation of a voiced postalveolar approximant [ɹ̠].

Features of the voiced alveolar approximant:

Occurrence

Alveolar

More information Language, Word ...

Postalveolar

See also: Retroflex approximant and Voiced retroflex approximant
More information Language, Word ...

As an allophone of other rhotic sounds, [ɹ] occurs in Edo, Fula, Murrinh-patha, and Palauan.[23]

See also

Notes

  1. [1]
    Laver, John (1994). Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge University Press. p. 302. ISBN 0-521-45655-X.
  2. [2]
    Khan (2010), pp. 223–224.
  3. [3]
    Cornyn (1944:7)
  4. [4]
    Watkins (2001)
  5. [5]
    Maddieson et al. (1993:34)
  6. [6]
    Maddieson et al. (1993:28, 34)
  7. [7]
    Basbøll (2005:59 and 63)
  8. [8]
    Grønnum (2003:121)
  9. [9]
    Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:144)
  10. [10]
    Kohler (1995:165f), cited in Universität zu Köln: Phonologische Analyse
  11. [11]
    Wäller Platt: Die Aussprache
  12. [12]
    Arvaniti (2007:15–18)
  13. [13]
    Bakkes (2007:[page needed])
  14. [14]
    Acoustic-phonetic characteristics of the Brazilian Portuguese's retroflex /r/: data from respondents in Pato Branco, Paraná Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine. Irineu da Silva Ferraz. Pages 19–21 (in Portuguese)
  15. [15]
    Recasens (2004:436) citing Fougeron (1999) and Browman & Goldstein (1995)
  16. [16]
    Engstrand (1999:141)
  17. [17]
    Thompson (1959:459)
  18. [18]
    Merrill (2008:109)
  19. [19]
    Hallé, Best & Levitt (1999:283) citing Delattre & Freeman (1968), Zawadzki & Kuehn (1980), and Boyce & Espy-Wilson (1997)
  20. [20]
    Ikekeonwu (1999:108)
  21. [21]
    Puech (2013:74)
  22. [22]
    Valenzuela, Márquez Pinedo & Maddieson (2001:282)
  23. [23]
    Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:240–241)

References

  • Arvaniti, Amalia (2007), "Greek Phonetics: The State of the Art" (PDF), Journal of Greek Linguistics, 8: 97–208, doi:10.1075/jgl.8.08arv, archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-11
  • Bakkes, Pierre (2007), Mofers Waordebook (in Dutch), Stichting Mofers Waordebook, ISBN 978-90-9022294-3
  • Basbøll, Hans (2005), The Phonology of Danish, OUP Oxford, ISBN 0-19-824268-9
  • Boyce, S.; Espy-Wilson, C. (1997), "Coarticulatory stability in American English /r/", Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 101 (6): 3741–3753, Bibcode:1997ASAJ..101.3741B, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.16.4174, doi:10.1121/1.418333, PMID 9193061
  • Browman, C.P.; Goldstein, L. (1995), "Gestural syllable position in American English", in Bell-Berti, F.; Raphael, L.J. (eds.), Producing Speech: Contemporary Issues: for Katherine Safford Harris, New York: AIP, pp. 9–33
  • Cornyn, William (1944), Outline of Burmese Grammar, Supplement to Language, vol. 20 no. 4, Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America
  • Delattre, P.; Freeman, D.C. (1968), "A dialect study of American R's by x-ray motion picture", Linguistics, 44: 29–68
  • Engstrand, Olle (1999), "Swedish", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 140–142, ISBN 9780521637510
  • Fougeron, C (1999), "Prosodically conditioned articulatory variation: A Review", UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, vol. 97, pp. 1–73
  • Grønnum, Nina (2003), "Why are the Danes so hard to understand?", in Jacobsen, Henrik Galberg; Bleses, Dorthe; Madsen, Thomas O.; Thomsen, Pia (eds.), Take Danish - for instance: linguistic studies in honour of Hans Basbøll, presented on the occasion of his 60th birthday, Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, pp. 119–130
  • Hallé, Pierre A.; Best, Catherine T.; Levitt, Andrea (1999), "Phonetic vs. phonological influences on French listeners' perception of American English approximants", Journal of Phonetics, 27 (3): 281–306, doi:10.1006/jpho.1999.0097
  • Ikekeonwu, Clara I. (1999), "Igbo", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 108–110, ISBN 9780521637510
  • Khan, Sameer ud Dowla (2010), "Bengali (Bangladeshi Standard)" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 40 (2): 221–225, doi:10.1017/S0025100310000071
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