Plosive
 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification.(September 2019) |
Inphonetics,aplosive,also known as anocclusiveor simply astop,is apulmonic consonantin which the vocal tract isblockedso that allairflowceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade ([t],[d]), tongue body ([k],[ɡ]), lips ([p],[b]), or glottis ([ʔ]). Plosives contrast withnasals,where the vocal tract is blocked but airflow continues through the nose, as in/m/and/n/,and withfricatives,where partial occlusion impedes but does not block airflow in the vocal tract.
Terminology
[edit]The termsstop, occlusive,andplosiveare often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on the distinction being made. The terms refer to different features of the consonant. "Stop" refers to the airflow that is stopped. "Occlusive" refers to the articulation, which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract. "Plosive" refers to the release burst (plosion) of the consonant. Some object to the use of "plosive" forinaudibly released stops,which may then instead be called "applosives". TheInternational Phonetic Associationand theInternational Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Associationuse the term "plosive".
Either "occlusive" or "stop" may be used as a general term covering the other together with nasals. That is, 'occlusive' may be defined asoralocclusive (plosives andaffricates) plus nasal occlusives (nasals such as[m],[n]), or 'stop' may be defined as oral stops (plosives) plus nasal stops (nasals).LadefogedandMaddieson(1996) prefer to restrict 'stop' to oral non-affricated occlusives. They say,[1]
what we call simply nasals are called nasal stops by some linguists. We avoid this phrase, preferring to reserve the term 'stop' for sounds in which there is a complete interruption of airflow.
In addition, they restrict "plosive" forpulmonic consonants;"stops" in their usage includeejectiveandimplosiveconsonants.[2]
If a term such as "plosive" is used for oral non-affricated obstruents, and nasals are not called nasal stops, then astopmay mean theglottal stop;"plosive" may even mean non-glottal stop. In other cases, however, it may be the word "plosive" that is restricted to the glottal stop. Generally speaking, plosives do not have plosion (a release burst). In English, for example, there are plosives withno audible release,such as the/p/inapt.However, English plosives do have plosion in other environments.
InAncient Greek,the term for plosive wasἄφωνον(áphōnon),[3]which means "unpronounceable", "voiceless", or "silent", because plosives could not be pronounced without a vowel. This term wascalquedintoLatinasmūta,and from there borrowed into English asmute.[4]Mutewas sometimes used instead for voiceless consonants, whether plosives or fricatives, a usage that was later replaced withsurd,from Latinsurdus"deaf" or "silent",[5]a term still occasionally seen in the literature.[6]For more information on the Ancient Greek terms, seeAncient Greek phonology § Terminology.
Articulation
[edit]A plosive is typically analysed as having up to three phases:
- Approach, during which articulators come together
- Hold (or "occlusion" or "closure" ), during which the articulators are held and block the airstream
- Release (or "burst" or "plosion" ), when the articulators are separated, releasing the compressed air[7]
Only the hold phase is requisite. A plosive may lack an approach when it is preceded by a consonant that involves an occlusion at the same place of articulation, as in[d]inendorold.In many languages, such asMalayandVietnamese,word-final plosives lack a release burst, even when followed by a vowel, or have anasal release.Seeno audible release.
Nasal occlusives are somewhat similar. In the catch and hold, airflow continues through the nose; in the release, there is no burst, and final nasals are typically unreleased across most languages.
Inaffricates,the catch and hold are those of a plosive, but the release is that of africative.That is, affricates are plosive–fricativecontours.
Common plosives
[edit]All spoken natural languages in the world have plosives,[8]and most have at least the voiceless plosives[p],[t],and[k].However, there are exceptions: ColloquialSamoanlacks thecoronal[t],and several North American languages, such as theIroquoianlanguages (e.g.,MohawkandCherokee), andArabiclack thelabial[p].In fact, the labial is the least stable of the voiceless plosives in the languages of the world, as the unconditioned sound change[p]→[f](→[h]→Ø) is quite common in unrelated languages, having occurred in the history ofClassical Japanese,Classical Arabic,andProto-Celtic,for instance. FormalSamoanhas only one word withvelar[k];colloquial Samoan conflates/t/and/k/to/k/.Ni‘ihauHawaiianhas[t]for/k/to a greater extent than Standard Hawaiian, but neither distinguish a/k/from a/t/.It may be more accurate to say that Hawaiian and colloquial Samoan do not distinguish velar and coronal plosives than to say they lack one or the other.
Ontena Gadsuphas only 1 phonemic plosive/ʔ/.[9][10]Yanyuwadistinguishes plosives in 7 places of articulations/bd̪dḏɖɡ̟ɡ̠/(it does not have voiceless plosives) which is the most out of all languages.[11]
SeeCommon occlusivesfor the distribution of both plosives and nasals.
Classification
[edit]Voice
[edit]Voicedplosivesare pronounced with vibration of thevocal cords,voicelessplosiveswithout. Plosives are commonly voiceless, and many languages, such asMandarin ChineseandHawaiian,have only voiceless plosives. Others, such as mostAustralian languages,are indeterminate: plosives may vary between voiced and voiceless without distinction, some of them likeYanyuwaandYidinyhave only voiced plosives.
Aspiration
[edit]Inaspiratedplosives,thevocal cords(vocal folds) are abducted at the time of release. In a prevocalic aspirated plosive (a plosive followed by a vowel or sonorant), the time when the vocal cords begin to vibrate will be delayed until the vocal folds come together enough for voicing to begin, and will usually start with breathy voicing. The duration between the release of the plosive and the voice onset is called thevoice onset time(VOT) or theaspiration interval.Highly aspirated plosives have a long period of aspiration, so that there is a long period of voiceless airflow (a phonetic[h]) before the onset of the vowel. Intenuisplosives, the vocal cords come together for voicing immediately following the release, and there is little or no aspiration (a voice onset time close to zero). In English, there may be a brief segment of breathy voice that identifies the plosive as voiceless and not voiced. In voiced plosives, the vocal folds are set for voice before the release, and often vibrate during the entire hold, and in English, the voicing after release is not breathy. A plosive is called "fully voiced" if it is voiced during the entire occlusion. In English, however, initial voiced plosives like/#b/or/#d/may have no voicing during the period of occlusion, or the voicing may start shortly before the release and continue after release, and word-final plosives tend to be fully devoiced: In most dialects of English, the final /b/, /d/ and /g/ in words likerib,madanddogare fully devoiced.[12]Initial voiceless plosives, like thepinpie,are aspirated, with a palpable puff of air upon release, whereas a plosive after ans,as inspy,istenuis(unaspirated). When spoken near a candle flame, the flame will flicker more after the wordspar, tar,andcarare articulated, compared withspar, star,andscar.In the common pronunciation ofpapa,the initialpis aspirated whereas the medialpis not.
Length
[edit]In ageminateorlongconsonant, the occlusion lasts longer than in simple consonants. In languages where plosives are only distinguished by length (e.g., Arabic, Ilwana, Icelandic), the long plosives may be held up to three times as long as the short plosives.Italianis well known for its geminate plosives, as the doubletin the nameVittoriatakes just as long to say as thectdoes in EnglishVictoria.Japanesealso prominently features geminate consonants, such as in the minimal pair lai たkita'came' and thiết ったkitta'cut'.Estonianis unusual for contrasting three lengths, as in the minimal tripletkabi/kɑpi/'hoof',kapi/kɑpːi/'wardrobe [gen. sg.]', andkappi/kɑpːːi/'wardrobe [ill. sg.]'.[13]
There are many languages where the features voice, aspiration, and length reinforce each other, and in such cases it may be hard to determine which of these features predominates. In such cases, the termsfortisis sometimes used for aspiration or gemination, whereaslenisis used for single, tenuous, or voiced plosives. However, the termsfortisandlenisare poorly defined, and their meanings vary from source to source.
Nasalization
[edit]Simplenasalsare differentiated from plosives only by a loweredvelumthat allows the air to escape through the nose during the occlusion. Nasals are acousticallysonorants,as they have a non-turbulent airflow and are nearly always voiced, but they are articulatorilyobstruents,as there is complete blockage of the oral cavity. The termocclusivemay be used as a cover term for both nasals and plosives.
Aprenasalized stopstarts out with a lowered velum that raises during the occlusion. The closest examples in English are consonant clusters such as the [nd] incandy,but many languages have prenasalized stops that function phonologically as single consonants.Swahiliis well known for having words beginning with prenasalized stops, as inndege'bird', and in many languages of the South Pacific, such asFijian,these are even spelled with single letters:b[mb],d[nd].
Apostnasalized plosivebegins with a raised velum that lowers during the occlusion. This causes an audible nasalrelease,as in Englishsudden.This could also be compared to the /dn/ cluster found inRussianand other Slavic languages, which can be seen in the name of theDnieper River.
The termsprenasalizationandpostnasalizationare normally used only in languages where these sounds are phonemic: that is, not analyzed into sequences of plosive plus nasal.
Airstream mechanism
[edit]Stops may be made with more than oneairstream mechanism.The normal mechanism ispulmonic egressive,that is, with air flowing outward from the lungs. All spoken languages have pulmonic stops. Some languages have stops made with other mechanisms as well:ejective stops(glottalic egressive),implosive stops(glottalic ingressive), orclick consonants(lingual ingressive).
Tenseness
[edit]Afortisplosiveis produced with more muscular tension than alenisplosive.However, this is difficult to measure, and there is usually debate over the actual mechanism of alleged fortis or lenis consonants.
There are a series of plosives in theKorean language,sometimes written with the IPA symbol for ejectives, which are produced using "stiff voice",meaning there is increased contraction of the glottis than for normal production of voiceless plosives. The indirect evidence for stiff voice is in the following vowels, which have a higher fundamental frequency than those following other plosives. The higher frequency is explained as a result of the glottis being tense. Other suchphonationtypes includebreathy voice,or murmur;slack voice;andcreaky voice.
Transcription
[edit]The following plosives have been given dedicated symbols in theIPA.
| ⟨p⟩ | voiceless bilabial plosive | ⟨b⟩ | voiced bilabial plosive |
|---|---|---|---|
| ⟨t⟩ | voiceless alveolar plosive | ⟨d⟩ | voiced alveolar plosive |
| ⟨ʈ⟩ | voiceless retroflex plosive | ⟨ɖ⟩ | voiced retroflex plosive |
| ⟨c⟩ | voiceless palatal plosive | ⟨ɟ⟩ | voiced palatal plosive |
| ⟨k⟩ | voiceless velar plosive | ⟨ɡ⟩ | voiced velar plosive |
| ⟨q⟩ | voiceless uvular plosive | ⟨ɢ⟩ | voiced uvular plosive |
| ⟨ʡ⟩ | epiglottal plosive | ||
| ⟨ʔ⟩ | glottal stop | ||
English
[edit]| [ptk] | voiceless, aspirated word-initially, tenuis in clusters afters,word-final often with no audible release |
|---|---|
| [bdɡ] | unaspirated, partially voiced word-initially, fully voiced intervocalically, fully devoiced when word-final |
| [ʔ] | glottal stop,not as aphonemein most dialects |
Variations
[edit]Many subclassifications of plosives are transcribed by adding adiacriticormodifier letterto the IPA symbols above.
| ⟨t⟩ | voiceless | ⟨d⟩ | voiced |
|---|---|---|---|
| ⟨t˭⟩ | tenuis | ⟨tʰ⟩ | aspirated |
| ⟨dʱ⟩ | breathy-voiced | ||
| ⟨t⟩ | ⟨d⟩ | pulmonic egressive | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ⟨tʼ⟩ | ejective | ⟨ɗ⟩ | implosive |
| ⟨!⟩ | click | ||
| ⟨ⁿd⟩ | prenasalized | ⟨dⁿ⟩ | nasally released |
|---|
| ⟨d̥⟩ | lenis: ⟨d⟩ withvoicelessnessdiacritic |
⟨t͈⟩ | tense | ⟨tt dd⟩ ⟨tː dː⟩ |
geminate |
|---|
See also
[edit]- Continuant(the opposite of a stop)
- List of phonetics topics
- Pop filter
- Nonexplosive stop
References
[edit]- ^Ladefoged, Peter;Maddieson, Ian(1996).The Sounds of the World's Languages.Oxford: Blackwell. p. 102.ISBN0-631-19815-6.
- ^Ladefoged, Peter;Maddieson, Ian(1996).The Sounds of the World's Languages.Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 77–78.ISBN0-631-19815-6.
- ^ἄφωνος.Liddell, Henry George;Scott, Robert;A Greek–English Lexiconat thePerseus Project
- ^"mute".Oxford English Dictionary(Online ed.).Oxford University Press.(Subscription orparticipating institution membershiprequired.)
- ^surdus.Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short.A Latin DictionaryonPerseus Project.
- ^"surd".Oxford English Dictionary(Online ed.).Oxford University Press.(Subscription orparticipating institution membershiprequired.)
- ^Collins, Beverly; Mees, Inger M. (2013).Practical Phonetics and Phonology: A Resource Book for Students(3rd ed.). Routledge. pp. 85–6.ISBN978-0-415-50650-2.
- ^König, W. (ed)dtv Atlas zur deutschen Sprachedtv 1994[full citation needed]
- ^Ulfsbjorninn, Shanti; Lahrouchi, Mohamed."The Typology of the Distribution of Edge: the propensity for bipositionality".Papers in Historical Phonology.1.Archived fromthe originalon 2022-02-19 – via HAL-SHS - Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société.
- ^"Organised Phonology Data - Gadsup ( Ontena dialect) Language [GAJ] - Eastern Highlands Province"(PDF).SIL International.Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 2022-03-08.
- ^"Yanuyuwa".UCLA Phonetics Lab Data.University of California, Los Angeles.
- ^Cruttenden, Alan Gimsons Pronunciation of English.[full citation needed]
- ^Türk, Helen; Lippus, Pärtel; Šimko, Juraj (2017). "Context-dependent articulation of consonant gemination in Estonian".Laboratory Phonology.8(1): 26.
Further reading
[edit]- Ian Maddieson,Patterns of Sounds,Cambridge University Press,1984.ISBN0-521-26536-3
External links
[edit]- Rothenberg M."The Breath-Stream Dynamics of Simple-Released Plosive Production".Vol. 6.Bibliotheca Phonetica, Karger, Basel, 1968
