Alveolar and postalveolar approximants

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Alveolar approximant
ɹ
ð̠˕
IPA number151
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ɹ
Unicode (hex)U+0279
X-SAMPAr\ or D_r_o
Kirshenbaumr
Braille⠼ (braille pattern dots-3456)
Listen

Postalveolar approximant
ɹ̠
Listen

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

There is no separate symbol for the dental approximant (as in Spanish nada) in the International Phonetic Alphabet, which most scholars transcribe with the symbol for a voiced dental fricative, ⟨ð⟩.

The most common sound represented by the letter r in English is the postalveolar approximant, pronounced a little more back and transcribed more precisely in IPA as ⟨ɹ̠⟩, but ⟨ɹ⟩ is often used for convenience in its place. For further ease of typesetting, English phonemic transcriptions might use the symbol ⟨r⟩ even though this symbol represents the alveolar trill in phonetic transcription.

Features[edit]

Features of the alveolar approximant:

Occurrence[edit]

Alveolar[edit]

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Armenian Classical սուրճ [suɹtʃ] 'coffee'
Assamese Standard ঙা/rônga [ɹɔŋa] 'red'
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic Alqosh dialect ܪܒ [ɹɑbɑ] 'many' Corresponds to /ɾ/ in most other Assyrian dialects.
Tyari dialect
Burmese[1][2] တိစ္ဆာန် [təɹeɪʔsʰàɴ] 'animal' Occurs only in loanwords, mostly from Pali or English
Chukchi[citation needed] ңирэк [ŋiɹek] 'two'
Dahalo[3] [káð̠˕i] 'work' Apical. It is a common intervocalic allophone of /d̠/, and may be a weak fricative [ð̠] or simply a plosive [d] instead.[4]
Danish Standard[5][6][7] ved [ve̝ð̠˕ˠ] 'at' Velarized and laminal; allophone of /d/ in the syllable coda.[5][6][7] For a few speakers, it may be a non-sibilant fricative instead.[7] See Danish phonology.
Dutch Central Netherlandic door [doːɹ] 'through' Allophone of /r/ in the syllable coda for some speakers. See Dutch phonology.
Western Netherlandic
Leiden rat [ɹat] 'rat' Corresponds to /r/ in other dialects.
Faroese róður [ɹɔuwʊɹ] 'rudder' See Faroese phonology.
German Standard Austrian[8] Rebe [ˈɹeːbɛ] 'vine' The most common alveolar realization of /r/, with a trill [r] being the alternative realization. The more common uvular realizations are a fricative (either voiced [ʁ] or voiceless [χ]) and, more rarely, a trill [ʀ].[8] See Standard German phonology.
Siegerland[9] [ˈɹeːbə] Most other dialects use a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] or a uvular trill [ʀ]. See Standard German phonology.
Silesian
Upper Lusatian
Westerwald[10]
Greek[11] μέρα ra [ˈmɛɹɐ] 'day' Allophone of /r/ in rapid or casual speech and between vowels. See Modern Greek phonology.
Icelandic bróðir [ˈprou̯ð̠˕ir] 'brother' Usually apical. See Icelandic phonology.
Limburgish Montfortian dialect[12] maintenant [ˈmæ̃ːn˦ð̠˕ənɑ̃ː˨] 'now'
Persian فارسی [fɒːɹˈsiː] 'Persian' Allophone of /ɾ/ before /d/, /l/, /s/, /ʃ/, /t/, /z/, and /ʒ/. See Persian phonology.
Portuguese Multiple Brazilian dialects[13][14] permitir [pe̞ɹmiˈtɕiɹ] 'to allow' Allophone of [ɾ] in the syllable coda. Common in central and southern large urban centres. May also be retroflex, post-alveolar and/or rhotic vowel. Often deleted from verbal infinitives. See Portuguese phonology.
Spanish Andalusian[15] doscientos [do̞ɹˈθje̞n̪t̪o̞s] 'two hundred' Allophone of /s/ before [θ]. See Spanish phonology.
Belizean invierno [imˈbjeɹno] 'winter' Possible realization of /r/ in the syllable coda.
Puerto Rican
Andean (mostly inland Ecuador, Peru, most of Bolivia and in parts of northern Argentina and Paraguay) hierro [ˈjeɹo] 'iron' Corresponding to [r] in other dialects.
Costa Rican
Swedish Central Standard[16] starkast [ˈs̪t̪äɹːkäs̪t̪] 'strongest' Allophone of /r/. Some speakers have [ɾ] ([r] when geminated) in all positions. See Swedish phonology.
Tagalog parang [paɹaŋ] 'like-' Allophone of the more traditional [ɾ ~ r] used by the more English-literate younger speakers.
Vietnamese Saigon[17] ra [ɹa] 'go out' In free variation with [ɾ], [r] and [ʐ]. See Vietnamese phonology.
Zapotec Tilquiapan[18] r [ɹd̪ɨ] 'pass' Allophone of /ɾ/ before consonants.

Postalveolar[edit]

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
English Australian red [ɹ̠ʷed] 'red' Often labialized. May also be a labialized retroflex approximant. For convenience it is often transcribed ⟨r⟩. See Australian English phonology, English phonology and Rhoticity in English.
Most American dialects[19] About this sound[ɹ̠ʷɛd] 
Received Pronunciation
Igbo[20] rí [ɹ̠í] 'eat'
Maltese Some dialects[21] [example needed] Corresponds to [ɾ ~ r] in other dialects.[21]
Shipibo[22] roro [ˈd̠ɹ̠o̽ɾ̠o̽] 'to break into pieces' Pre-stopped. Possible word-initial realization of /r/.[22]

As an allophone of other rhotic sounds, [ɹ] occurs in Edo, Fula, Murinh-patha, and Palauan.[23]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

  • Arvaniti, Amalia (2007), "Greek Phonetics: The State of the Art" (PDF), Journal of Greek Linguistics, 8: 97–208, doi:10.1075/jgl.8.08arv, archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-11
  • Bakkes, Pierre (2007), Mofers Waordebook (in Dutch), ISBN 978-90-9022294-3
  • Basbøll, Hans (2005), The Phonology of Danish, ISBN 0-19-824268-9
  • Boyce, S.; Espy-Wilson, C. (1997), "Coarticulatory stability in American English /r/", Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 101 (6): 3741–3753, Bibcode:1997ASAJ..101.3741B, doi:10.1121/1.418333, PMID 9193061
  • Browman, C.P.; Goldstein, L. (1995), "Gestural syllable position in American English", in Bell-Berti, F.; Raphael, L.J., Producing Speech: Contemporary Issues: for Katherine Safford Harris, New York: AIP, pp. 9–33
  • Cornyn, William (1944), Outline of Burmese Grammar, Supplement to Language, vol. 20 no. 4, Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America
  • Delattre, P.; Freeman, D.C. (1968), "A dialect study of American R's by x-ray motion picture", Linguistics, 44: 29–68
  • Engstrand, Olle (1999), "Swedish", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 140–142, ISBN 9780521637510
  • Fougeron, C (1999), "Prosodically conditioned articulatory variation: A Review", UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, 97, pp. 1–73
  • Grønnum, Nina (2003), "Why are the Danes so hard to understand?", in Jacobsen, Henrik Galberg; Bleses, Dorthe; Madsen, Thomas O.; Thomsen, Pia, Take Danish - for instance: linguistic studies in honour of Hans Basbøll, presented on the occasion of his 60th birthday, Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, pp. 119–130
  • 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 (3): 281–306, doi:10.1006/jpho.1999.0097
  • Ikekeonwu, Clara I. (1999), "Igbo", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 108–110, ISBN 9780521637510
  • Kohler, Klaus (1995), Einführung in die Phonetik des Deutschen, Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag
  • Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.
  • Maddieson, Ian; Spajić, Siniša; Sands, Bonny; Ladefoged, Peter (1993), "Phonetic structures of Dahalo", in Maddieson, Ian, UCLA working papers in phonetics: Fieldwork studies of targeted languages, 84, Los Angeles: The UCLA Phonetics Laboratory Group, pp. 25–65
  • Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 38 (1): 107–114, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344
  • Moosmüller, Sylvia; Schmid, Carolin; Brandstätter, Julia (2015), "Standard Austrian German", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 45 (03): 339–348, doi:10.1017/S0025100315000055
  • Puech, Gilbert (2013), "Prime constituents of Maltese sounds", in Borg, Albert; Caruana, Sandro; Vella, Alexandra, Perspectives on Maltese Linguistics, Berlin: Akademie Verlag GmbH, pp. 61–88, ISBN 978-3-05-006275-4
  • Recasens, Daniel (2004), "The effect of syllable position on consonant reduction (evidence from Catalan consonant clusters)", Journal of Phonetics, 32 (3): 435–453, doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2004.02.001
  • Valenzuela, Pilar M.; Márquez Pinedo, Luis; Maddieson, Ian (2001), "Shipibo", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31 (2): 281–285, doi:10.1017/S0025100301002109
  • Thompson, Laurence C. (1959), "Saigon Phonemics", Language, Linguistic Society of America, 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232
  • Watkins, Justin (2001), "Illustrations of the IPA: Burmese" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31 (2): 291–95, doi:10.1017/S0025100301002122
  • Zawadzki, P.A.; Kuehn, D.P. (1980), "A cineradiographic study of static and dynamic aspects of American English /r/", Phonetica, 37 (4): 253–266, doi:10.1159/000259995, PMID 7443796