Voiceless_uvular_stop

Voiceless uvular plosive

Voiceless uvular plosive

Consonantal sound represented by ⟨q⟩ in IPA

The voiceless uvular plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is pronounced like a voiceless velar plosive [k], except that the tongue makes contact not on the soft palate but on the uvula. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨q⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is q.

Quick Facts q, IPA Number ...

There is also the voiceless pre-uvular plosive[1] in some languages, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical uvular consonant, though not as front as the prototypical velar consonant. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as ⟨q̟⟩ or ⟨q˖⟩ (both symbols denote an advanced ⟨q⟩) or ⟨k̠⟩ (retracted ⟨k⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are q_+ and k_-, respectively.

Features

Features of the voiceless uvular stop:

  • Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive.
  • Its place of articulation is uvular, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the uvula.
  • Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
  • It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
  • It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
  • The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

More information Language, Word ...

See also

Notes

  1. [1]
    Instead of "pre-uvular", it can be called "advanced uvular", "fronted uvular", "post-velar", "retracted velar" or "backed velar". For simplicity, this article uses only the term "pre-uvular".
  2. [2]
    Ladefoged (2005), p. 165.
  3. [3]
    Watson (2002), p. 13.
  4. [4]
    Qafisheh (1977), p. 266.
  5. [5]
    Silva (2015), p. 39.
  6. [6]
    Mannell, Cox & Harrington (2009).
  7. [7]
    Torgersen, Kerswill & Fox (2007).
  8. [8]
    "John Wells's phonetic blog: k-backing". 27 July 2010. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
  9. [9]
    Cheshire, Jenny; Kerswill, Paul; Fox, Sue; Torgersen, Eivind (2011-04-01). "Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English" (PDF). Journal of Sociolinguistics. 15 (2): 151–196. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9841.2011.00478.x. ISSN 1467-9841. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  10. [10]
    "Glossary". Retrieved 10 February 2015.
  11. [11]
    Khan & Weise (2013), p. 235.
  12. [12]
    Shapiro, Michael C. (1989). A Primer of Modern Standard Hindi. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. p. 20. ISBN 978-81-208-0508-8. In addition to the basic consonantal sounds discussed in sections 3.1 and 3.2, many speakers use any or all five additional consonants (क़ ḳ, ख़ ḳh,ग़ ġ, ज़ z, फ़ f) in words of foreign origin (primarily from Persian, Arabic, English, and Portuguese). The last two of these, ज़ z and फ़ f, are the initial sounds in English zig and fig respectively. The consonant क़ ḳ is a voiceless uvular stop, somewhat like k, but pronounced further back in the mouth. ख़ ḳh is a voiceless fricative similar in pronunciation to the final sound of the German ach. ग़ ġ is generally pronounced as a voiceless uvular fricative, although it is occasionally heard as a stop rather than a fricative. In devanāgari each of these five sounds is represented by the use of a subscript dot under one of the basic consonant signs. In practice, however, the dot is often omitted, leaving it to the reader to render the correct pronunciation on the basis of his prior knowledge of the language.
  13. [13]
    Morelli, Sarah (20 December 2019). A Guru's Journey: Pandit Chitresh Das and Indian Classical Dance in Diaspora. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-05172-2. Hindi has a nasal sound roughly equivalent to the n in the English sang, transliterated here as ṅ or ṁ, and has two slightly differing sh sounds, transliterated as ś and ṣ. ... A few words contain consonants…from Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, and English: क़ (ق) is transliterated as q, ख़ (خ) as kh, ग़ (غ) as g, ज़ (ظ ,ز, or ض) as z, झ़ (ژ) as zh, and फ़ (ف) as f.
  14. [14]
    Kulshreshtha, Manisha; Mathur, Ramkumar (24 March 2012). Dialect Accent Features for Establishing Speaker Identity: A Case Study. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-4614-1137-6. A few sounds, borrowed from the other languages like Persian and Arabic, are written with a dot (bindu or nukta) as shown in Table 2.2. …those who come from rural backgrounds and do not speak really good Khariboli, pronounce these sounds as the nearest equivalents in Hindi.
  15. [15]
    Ladefoged (2005), p. 149.
  16. [16]
    Mc Laughlin (2005), p. 203.
  17. [17]
    Sjoberg (1963), p. 11.

References
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This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Voiceless_uvular_stop, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.