Voiceless palatal affricate
| Voiceless palatal affricate | |
|---|---|
| c͡ç | |
| c͜ç | |
| cç | |
| IPA number | 107 (138) |
| Encoding | |
| Entity (decimal) |
c͡ç |
| Unicode (hex) | U+0063 U+0361 U+00E7 |
| X-SAMPA |
c_C |
| Sound | |
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The voiceless palatal affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represent this sound are ⟨c͡ç⟩ and ⟨c͜ç⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is c_C. The tie bar is sometimes omitted, yielding ⟨cç⟩ in the IPA and cC 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.
This sound is the non-sibilant equivalent of the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate.
The voiceless palatal affricate occurs in such languages as Hungarian and Skolt Sami, among others. The consonant is quite rare; it is mostly absent from Europe (with the Uralic languages and Albanian being exceptions). It usually occurs with its voiced counterpart, the voiced palatal affricate.
There is also the voiceless post-palatal affricate[1] in some languages, which is articulated slightly more back compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical voiceless palatal affricate, though not as back as the prototypical voiceless velar affricate. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as ⟨c̠͡ç̠⟩, ⟨c͡ç˗⟩ (both symbols denote a retracted ⟨c͡ç⟩) or ⟨k̟͡x̟⟩ (advanced ⟨k͡x⟩) - this article uses only the first symbol. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are c_-_C_- and k_+_x_+, respectively.
Especially in broad transcription, the voiceless post-palatal affricate may be transcribed as a palatalized voiceless velar affricate (⟨k͡xʲ⟩ or ⟨k͜xʲ⟩ in the IPA, k_x' or k_x_j in X-SAMPA).
Features
Features of the voiceless palatal 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. It is not a sibilant.
- Its place of articulation is palatal, which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised to the hard palate. The otherwise identical post-palatal variant is articulated slightly behind the hard palate, making it sound slightly closer to the velar [k͡x].
- 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
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dutch[2] | bakje | [ˈbɑc̠͡ç̠ə] | 'tray' (dim.) | Post-palatal; phonetic realization of the sequence /kj/.[2] See Dutch phonology | |
| Hungarian | tyúk | [c͡çuːk] | 'hen' | See Hungarian phonology | |
| Kaingang[3] | [c͡çɔi̯ɟ] | 'cranefly' | Possible word-initial realization of /ç/.[4] | ||
| Korean | Allophone of /kʰ/ before /i/ and /j/. See Korean phonology | ||||
| Lushootseed | ɬičáʔa | [ɬic͡çaʁˀa] | 'nets' | ||
| Norwegian | Central dialects[5] | ikkje | [ic͡çə] | 'not' | See Norwegian phonology |
| Western dialects[5] | |||||
| Skolt Sami | sääˊmǩiõll | [sʲaamc͡çiɘl] | 'Skolt Sami' | ||
See also
References
- ↑ Instead of "post-palatal", it can be called "retracted palatal", "backed palatal", "palato-velar", "pre-velar", "advanced velar", "fronted velar" or "front-velar". For simplicity, this article uses only the term "post-palatal".
- 1 2 Collins & Mees (2003), pp. 155, 193.
- ↑ Jolkesky (2009), pp. 676, 681.
- ↑ Jolkesky (2009), p. 681.
- 1 2 Skjekkeland (1997), pp. 96–100.
Bibliography
- Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2003) [First published 1981], The Phonetics of English and Dutch (PDF) (5th ed.), Leiden: Brill Publishers, ISBN 9004103406
- Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2009), "Fonologia e prosódia do Kaingáng falado em Cacique Doble", Anais do SETA, Campinas: Editora do IEL-UNICAMP, 3: 675–685
- Skjekkeland, Martin (1997), Dei norske dialektane: Tradisjonelle særdrag i jamføring med skriftmåla (in Norwegian), Høyskoleforlaget (Norwegian Academic Press)
