The voiceless labial–velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨xʷ⟩ or occasionally ⟨ʍ⟩. The letter ⟨ʍ⟩ was defined as a "voiceless [w]" until 1979,[1] when it was defined as a fricative with the place of articulation of [k͡p] the same way that [w] is an approximant with the place of articulation of [ɡ͡b].[2] The IPA Handbook describes ⟨ʍ⟩ as a "fricative" in the introduction (IPA 1999: ix) while a chapter within characterizes it as an "approximate" (IPA 1999: 136).
| Voiceless labial–velar fricative | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ʍ | |||
| xʷ | |||
| IPA Number | 169 | ||
| Audio sample | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ʍ | ||
| Unicode (hex) | U+028D | ||
| X-SAMPA | W | ||
| Braille |   | ||
| |||
Some linguists posit voiceless approximants distinct from voiceless fricatives. To them, English /ʍ/ is an approximant [w̥],[3] a labialized glottal fricative [hʷ], or an [hw] sequence, not a velar fricative.[4] Scots /ʍ/ has been described as a velar fricative,[5] especially in older Scots, where it was [xw].[6] Other linguists believe that a "voiceless approximant" is a contradiction in terms, and so [w̥] must be the same as [xʷ]. Ladefoged and Maddieson were unable to confirm that any language has fricatives produced at two places of articulation, like labial and velar.[7] They conclude that "if it is a fricative, it is better described as a voiceless labialized velar fricative".[8]
Features
editFeatures of the voiceless labial–velar fricative:
- Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
- Its place of articulation is labialized velar, which means it is articulated with the back part of the tongue raised toward the soft palate (the velum) while rounding the lips.
- Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
- 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.
- Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.
Occurrence
edit| Family | Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eskimo-Aleut | Aleut[9] | Atkan | hwax̂ | [ʍaχ] | 'smoke' | |
| Bering | ʼЎaӽ | |||||
| Celtic | Cornish | SWF | hwi | [ʍi] | 'you all' | |
| Germanic | English | Conservative Received Pronunciation[10] | whine | [ʍaɪ̯n] | 'whine' | English /ʍ/ is generally a labio-velar fricative or approximant.[4] It is usually represented phonemically as /hw/, but phonetically there is not a sequence of [h] plus [w] (see English phonology). In General American[11] and New Zealand English[12] only some speakers maintain a distinction with /w/; in Europe, mostly heard in Irish and Scottish accents.[10] See English phonology and phonological history of wh. |
| Cultivated South African[13] | ||||||
| Conservative General American[11] | ||||||
| Irish[13][14] | [ʍʌɪ̯n] | |||||
| Scottish[13][15][16] | ||||||
| Southern American[17] | [ʍäːn] | |||||
| New Zealand[12][15][18] | [ʍɑe̯n] | |||||
| Athabaskan | Hupa[19] | xwe꞉y | [xʷeːj] | 'his property' | A voiceless labialized velar fricative. | |
| Sino-Tibetan | Kham | Gamale Kham | ह्वा | [ʍɐ] | 'tooth' | Described as an approximant.[20] |
| Salishan | Lushootseed | dxʷʔiyb | [dxʷʔib] | 'Newhalem, Washington' | ||
| Salishan | Shuswap | secwepemctsín | [ʃəxʷəpəməxˈtʃin] | 'Shuswap language' | ||
| Slavic | Slovene[21][22] | vse | [ˈʍsɛ] | 'everything' | Allophone of /ʋ/ in the syllable onset before voiceless consonants, in free variation with a vowel [u]. Voiced [w] before voiced consonants.[21][22] See Slovene phonology. | |
| Isolate | Washo | Wáʔi | [ˈxʷaʔi] or [ˈw̥aʔi] | 'he's the one who's doing it' | Variously described as a labialized velar fricative or a voiceless approximant. | |
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ Association phonétique internationale (1952). "The International Phonetic Alphabet (revised to 1951)". Le Maître Phonétique. Troisième série. 30 (97). Front matter. JSTOR 44748475.
- ^ International Phonetic Association (1978). "The International Phonetic Alphabet (Revised to 1979)". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 8 (1–2). Supplement. JSTOR 44541414.
- ^ For instance, Lyle Campbell (2020) Historical Linguistics, 4th edition, page xxii.
- ^ a b Ladefoged (2006), p. 68.
- ^ International Phonetic Association (1999), p. 22.
- ^ Johnston (1997), pp. 499, 510.
- ^ Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996), pp. 330–2.
- ^ Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996), p. 326.
- ^ Головко, Е. В. (1994). Словарь алеутско-русский и русско-алеутский (беринговский диалект) [Aleut-Russian and Russian-Aleut Dictionary (Bering dialect)]. Отд-ние изд-ва "Просвещение". p. 14. ISBN 978-5-09-002312-2.
- ^ a b "Received Pronunciation Phonology".
- ^ a b Rogers (2000), p. 120.
- ^ a b Rogers (2000), p. 117.
- ^ a b c Lass (2002), p. 121.
- ^ Wells (1982), p. 432.
- ^ a b McMahon (2002), p. 31.
- ^ Wells (1982), p. 408.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006).
- ^ Wells (1982), p. 610.
- ^ Golla, Victor (1996). "Hupa Language Dictionary Second Edition". Retrieved Oct 31, 2021.
- ^ Wilde (2016).
- ^ a b Šuštaršič, Komar & Petek (1999), p. 136.
- ^ a b Greenberg (2006), p. 18.
References
edit- Greenberg, Mark L. (2006), A Short Reference Grammar of Standard Slovene, Kansas: University of Kansas, archived from the original on 2007-01-29
- International Phonetic Association (1999), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-65236-7
- Johnston, Paul (1997), "Regional Variation", in Jones, Charles (ed.), The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 433–513, ISBN 978-0-7486-0754-9, JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctvxcrwhq.15
- Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006), The Atlas of North American English, Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-016746-8
- Ladefoged, Peter (2006), A Course in Phonetics (5th ed.), Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers
- Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996), The Sounds of the World's Languages, Oxford: Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-19815-6
- Lass, Roger (2002), "South African English", in Mesthrie, Rajend (ed.), Language in South Africa, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521791052
- McMahon, April (2002), An Introduction to English Phonology, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd, ISBN 0-7486-1252-1
- Rogers, Henry (2000), The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics, Essex: Pearson Education Limited, ISBN 978-0-582-38182-7
- Šuštaršič, Rastislav; Komar, Smiljana; Petek, Bojan (1999), "Slovene", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 135–139, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004874, ISBN 0-521-65236-7, S2CID 249404451
- Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English. Vol. 1: An Introduction (pp. i–xx, 1–278), Vol. 3: Beyond the British Isles (pp. i–xx, 467–674). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511611766. ISBN 0-52129719-2, 0-52128541-0.
- Wilde, Christopher P. (2016), "Gamale Kham phonology revisited, with Devanagari-based orthography and lexicon", Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (9): 130–199, hdl:1885/109195