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Implosive consonant

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This article containsphonetic transcriptionsin theInternational Phonetic Alphabet(IPA).For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.For the distinction between[ ],/ /and ⟨⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Implosive consonantsare a group ofstop consonants(and possibly also someaffricates) with a mixedglottalic ingressiveandpulmonic egressiveairstream mechanism.[1]That is, the airstream is controlled by moving theglottisdownward in addition to expelling air from the lungs. Therefore, unlike the purely glottalicejective consonants,implosives can be modified byphonation.Contrastive implosives are found in approximately 13%[2]of the world's languages.

In theInternational Phonetic Alphabet,implosives are indicated by modifying the top of a letter (voiced stop) with a rightward-facing hook: ⟨ɓ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ʛ⟩.

Articulation[edit]

During the occlusion of the stop, pulling the glottis downward rarefies the air in the vocal tract. The stop is then released. In languages whose implosives are particularly salient, that may result in air rushing into the mouth before it flows out again with the next vowel. To take in air sharply in that way is to implode a sound.[3]

However, probably more typically, there is no movement of air at all, which contrasts with the burst of the pulmonary plosives. This is the case with many of theKru languages,for example. That means that implosives are phonetically sonorants (not obstruents) as the concept of sonorant is usually defined. However, implosives can phonologically pattern as both; that is, they may be phonologicalsonorantsorobstruentsdepending on the language.

George N. Clements(2002) actually proposes that implosives are phonologically neither obstruents nor sonorants.

The vast majority of implosive consonants arevoiced,so the glottis is only partially closed. Because the airflow required for voicing reduces the vacuum being created in the mouth, implosives are easiest to make with a large oral cavity.[citation needed]

Types[edit]

Implosives are most often voiced stops, occasionally voiceless stops. Individual tokens of glottalized sonorants (nasals, trills, laterals, etc.) may also be pronounced with a lowering of the glottis by some individuals, occasionally to the extent that they are noticeably implosive, but no language is known where implosion is a general characteristic of such sounds.[4]

Voiced implosives[edit]

The attested voiced implosive stops are the following:

There are no IPA symbols for implosive fricatives. Implosive fricatives are unknown, and implosive affricates unlikely.[why?]An implosive affricate[ɗʒ]has been reported inRoglai,but more investigation may reveal that it is something different.[5]

Voiceless implosives[edit]

Consonants variously called "voiceless implosives," "implosives with glottal closure,"[6]or "reverse ejectives" involve a slightly different airstream mechanism, purely glottalic ingressive.[1]The glottis is closed so no pulmonic airstream is possible. The IPA once dedicated symbols ⟨ƥ ƭ 𝼉 ƈ ƙ ʠ ƙ͜ƥ⟩ to such sounds, but they were withdrawn in 1993 and replaced with a voiceless diacritic, ⟨ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ᶑ̥ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥ ɠ̊͜ɓ̥⟩. Some authors disagree with the analysis implied by the voiceless diacritic and retain the dedicated voiceless letters, or, occasionally, transcribe them instead as ⟨pʼ↓ tʼ↓ ʈʼ↓ cʼ↓ kʼ↓ qʼ↓ k͡pʼ↓⟩. The IPA had also suggested the possibility of a superscript left pointer, ⟨p˂ t˂ ʈ˂ c˂ k˂ q˂ k͡p˂⟩, but it was not approved by the membership.

The attested voiceless implosive stops are:

Attested implosive consonants[7]
(excluding secondary phonations and articulations)
Bilabial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Labial–
velar 		Uvular
Voiceless ƥ ƭ̪ ƭ 𝼉 ƈ ƙ ƙ͜ƥ ʠ
Voiced ɓ ɗ̪ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ɠ͜ɓ ʛ

Occurrence[edit]

In the world's languages, the occurrence of implosives shows a strong cline fromfront to backpoints of articulation. Bilabial[ɓ]is the most common implosive. It is very rarely lacking in the inventory of languages which have implosive stops. On the other hand, implosives with a back articulation (such as velar[ɠ]) occur much less frequently; apart from a few exceptions, the presence of the velar implosive[ɠ]goes along with the presence of implosives further forward.[8]One of the few languages with a farther back implosive (specifically the alveolar one[ɗ]), and without the bilabial implosive, isYali,aDani languagespoken on the Indonesian side ofNew Guinea.[9]

Implosives are widespread among the languages ofSub-Saharan AfricaandSoutheast Asiaand are found in a few languages of theAmazon Basin.They are rarely reported elsewhere but occur in scattered languages such as theMayan languagesinNorth America,SaraikiandSindhiin theIndian subcontinent.They appear to be entirely absent as phonemes fromEuropeand northernAsiaand fromAustralia,even from the Australian ceremonial languageDamin,which uses every other possible airstream mechanism besidespercussives.However, Alpher (1977) reports that theNhangu languageof Australia may actually contain implosives, though more research is needed to determine the true nature of these sounds. Implosives may occasionally occur phonetically in some European languages: For instance, in some northern dialects ofIngrian,intervocalic bilabial stops may be realised as the implosive[ɓ]or[ɓ̥].[10]

Fully voiced stops are slightly implosive in a number of other languages, but this is not often described explicitly if there is no contrast with modal-voiced plosives. This situation occurs fromMaidutoThaito manyBantu languages,includingSwahili.

SindhiandSaraikihave an unusually large number of contrastive implosives, with/ɓᶑ ʄɠ/.[6][11]Although Sindhi has a dental–retroflex distinction in its plosives, with/bdɖ ɟɡ/,the contrast is neutralized in the implosives. A contrastive retroflex implosive/ᶑ /may also occur inNgad'a,a language spoken inFlores,Indonesia,[12]and occurs inWadiyara Koli,a language spoken inIndiaandPakistanwhere it contrasts with the voiced alveolar implosive/ɗ/.[13]

More examples can be found in the articles on individual implosives.

Voiceless implosives are quite rare, but are found in languages as varied as the Owere dialect ofIgboinNigeria(/ƥ//ƭ/),KrongoinSudan,the Uzere dialect ofIsoko,the closely relatedLenduandNgitilanguages in theDemocratic Republic of Congo,SererinSenegal(/ƥƭƈ/), and some dialects of thePoqomchi’andQuiche languagesinGuatemala(/ƥƭ/). Owere Igbo has a seven-way contrast among bilabial stops,/pʰpƥbʱbɓm/,and its alveolar stops are similar. Thevoiceless velar implosive[ƙ]occurs marginally inUspantek[14]and/ʠ/occurs inMam,Kaqchikel,andUspantek.[15]Lenduhas been claimed to have voiceless/ƥƭƈ/,but they may actually becreaky-voicedimplosives.[6]The voiceless labial–velar implosive[ƙ͜ƥ]also may occur in Central Igbo.[16][17]

Some English speakers use a voiceless velar implosive[ƙ]to imitate the "glug-glug" sound of liquid being poured from a bottle, but others use a voiced implosive[ɠ].[18]

References[edit]

  1. ^abBall, Martin J.; Müller, Nicole (2014-02-04).Phonetics for Communication Disorders.doi:10.4324/9781315805573.ISBN978-1-315-80557-3.
  2. ^Maddieson, Ian. 2008.Glottalized Consonants.In: Haspelmath, Martin & Dryer, Matthew S. & Gil, David & Comrie, Bernard (eds.)The World Atlas of Language Structures Online.Munich: Max Planck Digital Library, chapter 7. Accessed on 2008-03-28 via Wals info.
  3. ^"Implode" (2. [with obj.] [phonetic terminology]: utter or pronounce (a consonant) with a sharp intake of air.)New Oxford American Dictionary3rd ed., 2010
  4. ^Esling, John H.; Moisik, Scott R.; Benner, Allison; Crevier-Buchman, Lise (2019). Voice Quality: The Laryngeal Articulator Model. Cambridge University Press.
  5. ^As happened with theGitxsan language,which "[..] does not have voiced implosive stops; rather, it has lax glottalized stops that display a creaky voice quality at the margin of the vowel in pretonic (and syllable-final) environments." — Bruce Rigsby & John Ingram (1990) "Obstruent Voicing and Glottalic Obstruents in Gitksan".International Journal of American Linguistics,vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 251–263.
  6. ^abcLadefoged, Peter;Maddieson, Ian(1996).The Sounds of the World's Languages.Oxford: Blackwell.ISBN0-631-19815-6.
  7. ^Bickford & Floyd (2006)Articulatory Phonetics,Table 25.1, augmented by sources at the articles on individual consonants
  8. ^Greenberg, Joseph H. (1970). "Some Generalizations concerning Glottalic Consonants, Especially Implosives".International Journal of American Linguistics.36(2): 123–145.doi:10.1086/465105.JSTOR1264671.S2CID143225017.
  9. ^Fahner, Christiaan (1979).The Morphology of Yali and Dani: A Descriptive and Comparative Analysis.
  10. ^N. V. Kuznetsova (2009).Фонологические системы Ижорских диалектов[The phonological systems of the Ingrian dialects].Institute for Linguistic Studies(dissertation). p. 181.
  11. ^Swahili has a similar/ɓɗʄɠ/,without contrasting with voiced pulmonic stops, unlike in Sindhi.
  12. ^Djawanai, Stephanus. (1977). A description of the basic phonology of Nga'da and the treatment of borrowings.NUSA linguistic studies in Indonesian and languages in Indonesia,5,10-18
  13. ^ZUBAIR, SAEED (April 2016).A Phonological Description of Wadiyara, a Language Spoken in Pakistan(PDF)(MA).Payap University.p. 2.Retrieved9 October2020.
  14. ^Bennett, Ryan; Harvey, Meg; Henderson, Robert; Méndez López, Tomás Alberto (September 2022)."The phonetics and phonology of Uspanteko (Mayan)".Language and Linguistics Compass.16(9).doi:10.1111/lnc3.12467.ISSN1749-818X.S2CID252453913.
  15. ^England, Nora C. (1983).A grammar of Mam, a Mayan language.Austin: University of Texas Press.ISBN0292729278.OCLC748935484.
  16. ^Bickford & Floyd (2006)Articulatory Phonetics
  17. ^Clark, Mary M. (1990).The Tonal System of Igbo.doi:10.1515/9783110869095.ISBN9783110130416.
  18. ^Pike,Phonetics,1943:40

Bibliography[edit]

Look upimplosivein Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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