Voiced alveolo palatal sibilant

Updated on Feb 03, 2024

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IPA number 183 Unicode (hex) U+0291 Braille Example		Entity (decimal) ʑ X-SAMPA z\

The voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʑ⟩ ("z", plus the curl also found in its voiceless counterpart ⟨ɕ⟩), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is z\. It is the sibilant equivalent of the voiced palatal fricative.

The voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant fricative does not occur in any major dialect of English. However, it is the usual realization of /ʒ/ (as in vision) in the Ghanaian variety.

Features

Features of the voiced alveolo-palatal fricative:

Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is generally produced by channeling air flow along a groove in the back of the tongue up to the place of articulation, at which point it is focused against the sharp edge of the nearly clenched teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.

Its place of articulation is alveolo-palatal. This means that:

Its place of articulation is postalveolar, meaning that the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth in the area behind the alveolar ridge (the gum line).

Its tongue shape is laminal, meaning that it is the tongue blade that contacts the roof of the mouth.

It is heavily palatalized, meaning that the middle of the tongue is bowed and raised towards the hard palate.

Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.

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.

References

Voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant Wikipedia

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