Voiceless glottal affricate

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Voiceless glottal affricate
ʔh
IPA number113 146
Encoding
X-SAMPA?_h
Listen

The voiceless glottal affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represent this sound are ⟨ʔ͡h⟩ and ⟨ʔ͜h⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ?_h. The tie bar is sometimes omitted, yielding ⟨ʔh⟩ in the IPA and ?h in X-SAMPA. This is potentially problematic in case of at least some affricates, because there are languages that contrast certain affricates with stop-fricative sequences. Polish words czysta ('clean (f.)', pronounced with an affricate /t͡ʂ/) and trzysta ('three hundred', pronounced with a sequence /tʂ/) are an example of a minimal pair based on such a contrast.

Features[edit]

Features of the voiceless glottal affricate:

  • Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
  • Its place of articulation is glottal, which means it is articulated at and by the vocal cords (vocal folds).
  • Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
  • It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
  • It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
  • The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence[edit]

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Chinese Yuxi dialect[1][2] [ʔ͡ho˥˧] 'can, may' Corresponds to /kʰ/ in Standard Chinese.[2][3]
English Received Pronunciation[4] hat [ʔ͡haʔt] 'hat' Possible allophone of /h/, especially in stressed syllables.[4] See English phonology

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Yang (1969), pp. 393–394.
  2. ^ a b Colarusso (2012), p. 2.
  3. ^ Yang (1969), p. 394.
  4. ^ a b Collins & Mees (2003), p. 148.

References[edit]

  • Colarusso, John (2012), The Typology of the Gutturals (PDF)
  • Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2003) [First published 1981], The Phonetics of English and Dutch (PDF) (5th ed.), Leiden: Brill Publishers, ISBN 9004103406
  • Yang, Shifeng (1969), A Report of Investigating Dialects in Yunnan Province [雲南方言調查報告]