A voiced pharyngeal fricative or approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .

Although the official classification of manner for this sound in the IPA is a fricative, spectrographic and acoustic studies have found that it is most often realized as an approximant. The IPA symbol itself is ambiguous, as no language is known to make a phonemic distinction between voiced pharyngeal fricatives and approximants. For clarity, the approximant may be distinguished with the IPA diacritic for lowering, such as . Additionally, laryngoscopic studies by John Esling have shown the vowel to have distinct pharyngeal constriction and resonance in its articulation, making the analogous semivowel of . Esling furthers this notion in his expanded notation of the IPA chart; alongside merging pharyngeal and epiglottal consonants into a single column, he suggests that if it were spatially possible to align the vowel chart with the consonant chart, so that the relations between vowels and their semivowel counterparts are maintained (such as below and below ), then the vowels and should be placed under the combined pharyngeal/epiglottal column.

Features

Features of a voiced pharyngeal approximant fricative:

Occurrence

Pharyngeal consonants are not widespread. Sometimes, a pharyngeal approximant develops from a uvular approximant. Many languages that have been described as having pharyngeal fricatives or approximants turn out on closer inspection to have epiglottal consonants instead. For example, the phoneme transcribed as for Arabic and standard Hebrew (though for most modern Hebrew speakers this has merged with a glottal stop) has been variously described as a voiced epiglottal fricative , an epiglottal approximant , or a retracted tongue root glottal stop .

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes

|-

| colspan="2" | Abaza || / || || 'March' ||

|-

| colspan="2" |Afar

|damaqtu

|[dʌmʌʕtu]

|'male baboon'

|

|-

| colspan=2| Arabic || /|||| 'Arabic' || See Arabic phonology

|-

|rowspan=2| Aramaic || Eastern || rowspan=2| / || ||rowspan=2| 'door' ||

The majority of the speakers will pronounce the word as .

|-

| Western || ||

|-

| colspan="2" | Avar || //|| || 'handle' ||

|-

| colspan="2" | Chechen || //|| || 'winter' ||

|-

| colspan="2" |Coeur d'Alene

|

|

|'antelope'

|

|-

| Danish || Standard || || ] || 'raven' || An approximant; See Danish phonology

|-

| colspan="2" |Dhao

| colspan="2" |

|'and'

|Phonetic status is not clear, but it has "extremely limited distribution". It may not be pronounced at all or be realized as a glottal stop.

|-

| Dutch || Limburg || || || 'wheel' || An approximant; a possible realization of . || || || 'mother' || An approximant; occurs in East Central Germany, Southwestern Germany, parts of Switzerland and in Tyrol. || || || 'changes' || An approximant. || || || 'my (paternal) uncle' ||

|-

|Kurdish

|Kurmanji

|/

|

|'cloud'

|The sound is usually not written in the Latin alphabet, but can be used.

|-

|Khalaj

|Standard

|

|

|'side'

|

|-

| colspan=2| Luwati || |||| 'castle' || Used in Arabic loanwords

|-

|Malay

|Kedah

|/

|

|'to burn'

|Corresponds to word-final in Standard Malay. Could be voiced velar fricative [] for some speakers. Prevocalically and intervocalically, Standard Malay corresponds to in Kedah Malay. See Kedah Malay

|-

| colspan="2" |Maltese

|

|

|'tomorrow'

|

|-

| colspan="2" |Mehri

|/

|

|'eye'

|

|-

| colspan="2" |Nuu-chah-nulth

|ʕiiniƛ

|

|'dog'

|May be a plosive

|-

| Occitan || Southern Auvergnat|| || || 'shovel' || See Occitan phonology

|-

| colspan="2" |Okanagan

|ʕaymt

|

|'angry'

|

|-

| colspan="2" |Pilagá

|

|

|'moon'

|See Pilagá phonology

|-

| colspan="2" |Tarifit

|/

|

|'probably'

|See Tarifit phonology

|-

| colspan="2" |Salish

|

|

|'it's melted'

|

|-

| colspan="2" |Shehri

|/

|[ɬaʕb]

|'valley'

|See Shehri phonology

|-

| Sioux

|Stoney|| || || 'rain' ||

|-

| colspan="2" |Somali

|/

|[ʕaːno]

|'milk'

|See Somali phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Soqotri || / || || 'raven' ||See Soqotri phonology

|-

| colspan="2" |U

|

|

|'tree bark'

|Corresponded to proto-Palaungic * or open back vowel *.

|-

| colspan="2" | Ukrainian|| || || 'voice' || Also described as glottal . See Ukrainian phonology

|}

See also

  • Modifier letter left half ring
  • Index of phonetics articles
  • Voiced uvular fricative
  • Glottal stop
  • Ayin

Citations

General references

  • <!-- Note: the surname Danylenko is erroneously spelled "Danyenko" on Google Books. -->