Alveolar approximant: Wikis

Note: Many of our articles have direct quotes from sources you can cite, within the Wikipedia article! This article doesn't yet, but we're working on it! See more info or our list of citable articles.

Categories: Approximants > Alveolar consonants

Encyclopedia

Updated live from Wikipedia, last check: May 29, 2012 09:34 UTC (49 seconds ago)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

IPA – number	151
IPA – text	ɹ
IPA – image
Entity	ɹ
X-SAMPA	`r\`
Kirshenbaum	`r`
Sound sample (help·info)

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

For ease of typesetting, some phonemic transcriptions use the symbol ‹r› instead of ‹ɹ›, even though the former symbol technically represents the alveolar trill.

1 Features
2 Occurrence
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References

Features

Features of the alveolar approximant:

Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by bringing one articulator close to another but without the vocal tract being narrowed to such an extent that a turbulent airstream is produced.
Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Armenian	Eastern	սուրճ	[suɹtʃʰ]	'coffee'
Chukchi		ңирэк	[ŋiɹek]	'two'
Dutch		werk	[ʋɛɹk]	'work'	Some dialects. Most dialects use an alveolar trill. See Dutch phonology
English	American dialects^[1]	red	[ɹ̠ˤʷɛd]	'red'	Often retracted and labialized. May also be a labialized retroflex approximant or an alveolar trill. See English phonology
Faroese		róður	[ɹɔuwʊɹ]	'rudder'
German	Westerwald^[2] and Siegerland^[3] dialects	Rebe	[ɹeːbə]	'vine shoot'	Most dialects use a voiced uvular fricative or uvular trill. See German phonology
Brazilian Portuguese	Caipira	porta	[ˈpɔɹta]	'door'	See Portuguese phonology
Brazilian Portuguese	Paulistano	porta	[ˈpɔɹta]	'door'	See Portuguese phonology
Spanish	Some dialects^[4]	doscientos	[do̞ɹˈθje̞nto̞s]	'two hundred'	Allophone of /s/ in the syllable coda.
Vietnamese		rơ	[ɹɤ]	'to clean'	See Vietnamese phonology
Zapotec	Tilquiapan^[5]	rdɨ	[ɹd̪ɨ]	'pass'	Allophone of /ɾ/ before any consonant

Notes

^ Hallé, Best & Levitt (1999:283) citing Delattre & Freeman (1968), Zawadzki & Kuehn (1980), and Boyce & Espy-Wilson (1997)
^ Wäller Platt: Die Aussprache
^ Kohler (1995:165f), cited in Universität zu Köln: Phonologische Analyse
^ Recasens (2004:436) citing Fougeron (1999) and Browman & Goldstein (1995)
^ Merrill (2008:109)

References

Boyce, S.; Espy-Wilson, C. (1997), "Coarticulatory stability in American English /r/", Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 101: 3741–3753
Browman, L.; Goldstein (1995), "Gestural syllable position in American English", in Bell-Berti, F., Producing Speech: Contemporary issues for K Harris, New York: AIP, pp. 9–33
Delattre, P.; Freeman, D.C. (1968), "A dialect study of American R's by x-ray motion picture", Linguistics 44: 29–68
Fougeron, C (1999), "Prosodically conditioned articulatory variation: A Review", UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, 97, pp. 1–73
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: 281–306
Kohler, Klaus (1995), Einführung in die Phonetik des Deutschen, Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag
Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquipan Zapotec", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (1): 107–114
Recasens, Daniel (2004), "The effect of syllable position on consonant reduction (evidence fromCatalan consonant clusters)", Journal of Phonetics 32: 435–453, doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2004.02.001
Zawadski, P.A.; Kuehn, D.P. (1980), "A cineradiographic study of static and dynamic aspects of American English /r/", Phonetica 37: 253–266

Consonants

List · Table

Pulmonics

Non-pulmonics and other symbols [edit • talk]

Clicks

p̪

t̪

Impl.

Eject.

pʼ

tʼ

kʼ

qʼ

sʼ

Affr.

Co-art. fricatives

•

Co-art. approxim.

Co-articulated stops

This table contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help]
Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged to be impossible.

The Full Wiki

Search:

More info on Alveolar approximant

Related topics