Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel
made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip
against the upper teeth, in the case of [f]; the back of the tongue against the
soft palate, in the case of German [x], the final consonant of Bach; or the side
of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh [ɬ], appearing twice in
the name Llanelli. This turbulent airflow is called frication. A
particular subset of fricatives are the sibilants. When forming a sibilant, one
still is forcing air through a narrow channel, but in addition, the tongue is
curled lengthwise to direct the air over the edge of the teeth. English [s], [z],
[ʃ], and [ʒ] are examples of this. Two other terms are spirant and
strident, but their usage is less standardized. The former can be used
synonymously with "fricative", or to refer to non-sibilant fricatives only.
The latter can be used synonymously with "sibilant", but some authors include
also labiodental, lateral or uvular fricatives in the class.
Types = Sibilants =
[s] voiceless coronal sibilant, as in English sip
[z] voiced coronal sibilant, as in English zip
[sʼ] ejective coronal sibilant [s̪] voiceless dental sibilant
[z̪] voiced dental sibilant [s̺] voiceless apical sibilant
[z̺] voiced apical sibilant [s̠] voiceless postalveolar sibilant
[z̠] voiced postalveolar sibilant [ʃ] voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant,
as in English ship [ʒ] voiced palato-alveolar sibilant, as
the s in English vision [ɕ] voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant
[ʑ] voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant [ʂ] voiceless retroflex sibilant
[ʐ] voiced retroflex sibilant All sibilants are coronal, but may be
dental, alveolar, postalveolar, or palatal within that range. However, at
the postalveolar place of articulation, the tongue may take several shapes:
domed, laminal, or apical, and each of these is given a separate symbol and a
separate name. Prototypical retroflexes are subapical and palatal, but they are
usually written with the same symbol as the apical postalveolars. The alveolars
and dentals may also be either apical or laminal, but this difference is
indicated with diacritics rather than with separate symbols.
= Central non-sibilant fricatives = [ɸ] voiceless bilabial fricative
[β] voiced bilabial fricative [f] voiceless labiodental fricative, as
in English fine [v] voiced labiodental fricative, as in
English vine [θ̼] voiceless linguolabial fricative
[ð̼] voiced linguolabial fricative [θ], [θ̟] voiceless dental non-sibilant
fricative, as in English thing [ð], [ð̟] voiced dental non-sibilant
fricative, as in English that [θ̠], [ɹ̝̊] voiceless alveolar
non-sibilant fricative [ð̠], [ɹ̝] voiced alveolar non-sibilant
fricative [r̝̊] voiceless trilled fricative
[r̝] voiced trilled fricative [ç] voiceless palatal fricative
[ʝ] voiced palatal fricative [x] voiceless velar fricative
[ɣ] voiced velar fricative [ɧ] voiceless palatal-velar fricative
[χ] voiceless uvular fricative [ħ] voiceless pharyngeal fricative
The IPA also has letters for epiglottal fricatives,
[ʜ] voiceless epiglottal fricative [ʢ] voiced epiglottal fricative
with allophonic trilling, but these might be better analyzed as pharyngeal
trills. = Lateral fricatives =
[ɬ̪] voiceless dental lateral fricative [ɮ̪] voiced dental lateral fricative
[ɬ] voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [ɮ] voiced alveolar lateral fricative
[ɬ̠] voiceless postalveolar lateral fricative
[ɭ̥˔] or [ꞎ] voiceless retroflex lateral fricative
[ʎ̥˔] or [ʎ̝̊] voiceless palatal lateral fricative
[ʟ̝̊] voiceless velar lateral fricative [ʟ̝] voiced velar lateral fricative
The lateral fricative occurs as the ll of Welsh, as in Lloyd, Llewelyn, and the
town of Machynlleth, as the unvoiced 'hl' and voiced 'dl' or 'dhl' in the
several languages of Southern Africa, and in Mongolian.
= IPA letters used for both fricatives and approximants =
[ʁ] voiced uvular fricative [ʕ] voiced pharyngeal fricative
No language distinguishes voiced fricatives from approximants at these
places, so the same symbol is used for both. For the pharyngeal, approximants
are more numerous than fricatives. A fricative realization may be specified
by adding the uptack to the letters, [ʁ̝, ʕ̝]. Likewise, the downtack may be
added to specify an approximant realization, [ʁ̞, ʕ̞].
(The bilabial approximant and dental approximant do not have dedicated
symbols either and are transcribed in a similar fashion: [β̞, ð̞]. However, the
base letters are understood to specifically refer to the fricatives.)
= Pseudo-fricatives = [h] voiceless glottal transition, as in
English hat [ɦ] breathy-voiced glottal transition
In many languages, such as English, the glottal "fricatives" are unaccompanied
phonation states of the glottis, without any accompanying manner, fricative or
otherwise. However, in languages such as Arabic, they are true fricatives.
In addition, [ʍ] is usually called a "voiceless labial-velar fricative", but
it is actually an approximant. True doubly articulated fricatives may not
occur in any language; but see voiceless palatal-velar fricative for a putative
example. = Aspirated fricatives =
Fricatives are very commonly voiced, though cross-linguistically voiced
fricatives are not nearly as common as tenuis fricatives. Other phonations are
common in languages that have those phonations in their stop consonants.
However, phonemically aspirated fricatives are rare. [sʰ] contrasts with
[s] in Korean; aspirated fricatives are also found in a few Sino-Tibetan
languages, in some Oto-Manguean languages, and in the Siouan language
Ofo. The record may be Cone Tibetan, which has four contrastive aspirated
fricatives: , , and . = Nasalized fricatives =
Phonemically nasalized fricatives are rare. Some South Arabian languages have
, Umbundu has , and Kwangali and Souletin Basque have . In Coatzospan
Mixtec, [β̃, ð̃, s̃, ʃ̃] appear allophonically before a nasal vowel, and
in Igbo nasality is a feature of the syllable; when /f v s z ʃ ʒ/ occur in
nasal syllables they are themselves nasalized.
Languages H is not a fricative in English.
Ubykh may be the language with the most fricatives, some of which do not have
dedicated symbols or diacritics in the IPA. This number actually outstrips the
number of all consonants in English. By contrast, approximately 8.7% of the
world's languages have no phonemic fricatives at all. This is a typical
feature of Australian Aboriginal languages, where the few fricatives that
exist result from changes to plosives or approximants, but also occurs in some
indigenous languages of New Guinea and South America that have especially small
numbers of consonants. However, whereas [h] is entirely unknown in indigenous
Australian languages, most of the other languages without true fricatives do
have [h] in their consonant inventory. Voicing contrasts in fricatives are
largely confined to Europe, Africa, and Western Asia. Languages of South and
East Asia, such as the Dravidian and Austronesian languages, typically do not
have such voiced fricatives as [z] and [v], which are familiar to many European
speakers. These voiced fricatives are also relatively rare in indigenous
languages of the Americas. Overall, voicing contrasts in fricatives are much
rarer than in plosives, being found only in about a third of the world's
languages as compared to 60 percent for plosive voicing contrasts.
About 15 percent of the world's languages, however, have unpaired voiced
fricatives, i.e. a voiced fricative without a voiceless counterpart.
Two-thirds of these, or 10 percent of all languages, have unpaired voiced
fricatives but no voicing contrast between any fricative pair.
This phenomenon occurs because voiced fricatives have developed from lenition
of plosives or fortition of approximants. This phenomenon of
unpaired voiced fricatives is scattered throughout the world, but is confined to
nonsibilant fricatives with the exception of a couple of languages that
have [ʒ] but lack [ʃ]. The fricatives that occur most often without a
voiceless counterpart are, in order of ratio of unpaired occurrences to total
occurrences, [ʝ], [β], [ð], [ʁ] and [ɣ]. See also
Apical consonant Hush consonant
Laminal consonant List of phonetics topics
References External links
Fricatives in English