Postalveolar click
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Template:Infobox IPA The alveolar and postalveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia.
The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the forward articulation of these sounds is . This must be combined with a symbol for the rear articulation to represent an actual speech sound. Attested (post)alveolar clicks include .
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Features
Features of postalveolar clicks:
- Their manner of articulation is click, which means they are produced with two articulatory closures in the oral cavity. The pocket of air trapped between the two closures is rarefied by a "sucking" action of the tongue. The release of the forward closure produces the 'click' sound. In the case of the postalveolar click, the release is sharp, like a plosive, rather than noisy like an affricate.
- The forward place of articulation is alveolar or postalveolar, depending on the language, and apical, which means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge or the roof of the mouth behind the alveolar ridge. (Damin had both articulations as separate phonemes.) The rear place of articulation may be either velar or uvular.
- (Post)alveolar clicks may be either oral or nasal, which means air is allowed to escape either through the mouth or the nose.
- They are central consonants, which means they are produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
- The airstream mechanism is velaric ingressive, which means it is produced by movement of air into the mouth by action of the tongue, rather than by the glottis or the lungs.
In other languages
The alveolar clicks are common in Khoisan languages and the neighboring Nguni languages (e.g. Zulu, Xhosa).
Xhosa and Zulu
In the Nguni languages, the tenuis click is denoted by the letter q, the murmured click by gq, the aspirated click by qh, and the nasal click by nq. The prenasalized clicks are written ngq and nkq.
The alveolar clicks are strongly articulated in the Nguni languages, with a sharp jerk downward of the lower jaw. The effect is rather like the sound of a cork pulled from a wine bottle.
Hadza
In Hadza, there are three postalveolar clicks: Tenuis , nasalized , and voiceless nasalized with simultaneous glottal closure, . In the latter click, the gottal stop begins during the occlusion of the click, and is released after the click release, resulting in a delay before the start of the following vowel.
The Hadza postalveolar clicks are unusual in their allophonic variation. They may have a single burst, as in the Khoisan and Bantu languages, but quite frequently they are flapped, with the underside of the tip of the tongue striking the floor of the mouth after the release of the click, all in a single "ballistic" motion. In some cases, the click release itself is rather faint, and it is this sup-apical percussive sound that dominates. This allophone has been transcribed as Template:Unicode in the literature.
See also