Sibilance is a manner of articulation of fricative and affricate consonants, made
by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the sharp edge of the
teeth, which are held close together; a consonant that uses sibilance may be
called a sibilant, or a strident. Examples of sibilants are the consonants
at the beginning of the English words sip, zip, ship, chip, and jump, and the
second consonant in vision. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet
used to denote the sibilant sounds in these words are, respectively, [s] [z]
[ʃ] [tʃ] [dʒ] [ʒ]. More specifically, the sounds [tʃ] [dʒ], as in chip and
jump, are affricates, whereas the rest are fricatives. Sibilants have a
characteristically intense sound, which accounts for their non-linguistic use in
getting one's attention. In the alveolar hissing sibilants [s]
and [z], the back of the tongue forms a narrow channel to focus the stream of
air more intensely, resulting in a high pitch. With the hushing sibilants, such
as English [ʃ], [tʃ], [ʒ], and [dʒ], the tongue is flatter, and the resulting
pitch lower. Because all sibilants are also
stridents, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. However, the terms do
not mean the same thing. The English stridents are /f, v, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ,
dʒ/. The English sibilants are a more high pitched subset of the stridents.
The English sibilants are /s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ/. and are stridents, but not
sibilants, because they are lower in pitch.
"Stridency" refers to the perceptual intensity of the sound of a sibilant
consonant, or obstacle fricatives/affricates, which refers to
the critical role of the teeth in producing the sound as an obstacle to
the airstream. Non-sibilant fricatives and affricates produce their
characteristic sound directly with the tongue or lips etc. and the place of
contact in the mouth, without secondary involvement of the teeth.
The characteristic intensity of sibilants means that small variations in
tongue shape and position are perceivable, with the result that there
are a large number of sibilant types that contrast in various languages.
Acoustics Sibilants are louder than their
non-sibilant counterparts, and most of their acoustic energy occurs at higher
frequencies than non-sibilant fricatives. [s] has the most acoustic
strength at around 8,000 Hz, but can reach as high as 10,000 Hz. [ʃ] has the
bulk of its acoustic energy at around 4,000 Hz, but can extend up to around
8,000 Hz. Sibilant types
All sibilants are coronal consonants. However, there is a great deal of
variety among sibilants as to tongue shape, point of contact on the tongue,
and point of contact on the upper side of the mouth.
The following variables affect sibilant sound quality, and, along with their
possible values, are ordered from sharpest to dullest:
Tongue shape: grooved, alveolo-palatal, palato-alveolar, retroflex
Place of articulation: dental or denti-alveolar, alveolar, postalveolar,
palatal Point of contact on the tongue: laminal
"closed", laminal non-"closed", apical, subapical
Generally, the values of the different variables co-occur so as to produce an
overall sharper or duller sound. For example, a laminal denti-alveolar
grooved sibilant occurs in Polish, and a subapical palatal retroflex sibilant
occurs in Toda. = Tongue shape=
The main distinction is the shape of the tongue. Most sibilants have a groove
running down the centerline of the tongue that helps focus the airstream,
but it's not known how widespread this is. In addition, the following tongue
shapes are described, from sharpest and highest-pitched to dullest and
lowest-pitched: Hollow: This hollow accepts a large
volume of air that is forced through a typically narrow aperture that directs a
high-velocity jet of air against the teeth, which results in a high-pitched,
piercing "hissing" sound. Because of the prominence of these sounds, they are the
most common and most stable of sibilants cross-linguistically. They occur in
English, where they are denoted with a letter s or z, as in soon or zone.
Alveolo-palatal: with a convex, V-shaped tongue, and highly palatalized.
Palato-alveolar: with a "domed" tongue. These sounds occur in English, where
they are denoted with letter combinations such as sh, ch, g, j or si,
as in shin, chin, gin and vision. Retroflex: with a flat or concave
tongue, and no palatalization. These sounds occur in a large number of
varieties, some of which also go by other names. The subapical palatal or
"true" retroflex sounds are the very dullest and lowest-pitched of all the
sibilants. The latter three post-alveolar types of
sounds are often known as "hushing" sounds because of their quality, as
opposed to the "hissing" alveolar sounds. The alveolar sounds in fact
occur in several varieties, in addition to the normal sound of English s:
Palatalized: Sibilants can occur with or without raising the tongue body to the
palate. Palatalized alveolars are transcribed e.g. [sʲ] and occur in
Russian; they sound similar to the cluster [sj] occurring in the middle of
the English phrase miss you. Lisping: Alveolar sibilants made with
the tip of the tongue near the upper teeth have a softer sound reminiscent of
the "lisping" [θ] sound of English think. These sounds are relatively
uncommon, but occur in some of the indigenous languages of California as
well as in the Spanish dialects of eastern Andalucia, in cities such as
Granada, Huelva, Cordoba, Jaén and Almeria. In these dialects, the lisping
sibilant [s̺] is the normal pronunciation of the letters s and z, as
well as c before i or e, replacing the [s] or [θ] that occurs elsewhere in
Andalucia. Speaking non-technically, the retroflex
consonant [ʂ] sounds somewhat like a mixture between the regular English [ʃ]
of "ship" and a strong American "r"; while the alveolo-palatal consonant [ɕ]
sounds somewhat like a mixture of English [ʃ] of "ship" and the [sj] in
the middle of "miss you". = Place of articulation=
Sibilants can be made at any coronal articulation, i.e. the tongue can
contact the upper side of the mouth anywhere from the upper teeth to the
hard palate, with the in-between articulations being denti-alveolar,
alveolar and postalveolar. = Point of contact on the tongue=
The tongue can contact the upper side of the mouth with the very tip of the
tongue; with the surface just behind the tip, called the blade of the tongue; or
with the underside of the tip. Apical and subapical articulations are always
tongue-up, with the tip of the tongue above the teeth, while laminal
articulations can be either tongue-up or tongue-down, with the tip of the tongue
behind the lower teeth. This distinction is particularly important for retroflex
sibilants, because all three varieties can occur, with noticeably different
sound qualities. For more information on these variants and their relation to
sibilants, see the article on postalveolar consonants.
For tongue-down laminal articulations, an additional distinction can be made
depending on where exactly behind the lower teeth the tongue tip is placed. A
little ways back from the lower teeth is a hollow area in the lower surface of
the mouth. When the tongue tip rests in this hollow area, there is an empty
space below the tongue, which results in a relatively duller sound. When the tip
of the tongue rests against the lower teeth, there is no sublingual cavity,
resulting in a sharper sound. Usually, the position of the tip of the tongue
correlates with the grooved vs. hushing tongue shape so as to maximize the
differences. However, the palato-alveolar sibilants in the
Northwest Caucasian languages such as Ubykh are an exception. These sounds
have the tongue tip resting directly against the lower teeth, which gives the
sounds a quality that Catford describes as "hissing-hushing". Ladefoged and
Maddieson term this a "closed laminal postalveolar" articulation, and
transcribe them as [ŝ, ẑ], although this is not an IPA notation. See the article
on postalveolar consonants for more information.
Symbols in the IPA The following table shows the types of
sibilant fricatives defined in the International Phonetic Alphabet:
Diacritics can be used for finer detail. For example, apical and laminal
alveolars can be specified as [s̺] vs [s̻]; a dental sibilant as [s̪]; a
palatalized alveolar as [sʲ]; and a generic "retracted sibilant" as [s̠], a
transcription frequently used for the sharper-quality types of retroflex
consonants. There is no diacritic to denote the laminal "closed" articulation
of palato-alveolars in the Northwest Caucasian languages, but they are
sometimes provisionally transcribed as [ŝ ẑ].
Possible combinations The attested possibilities, with
exemplar languages, are as follows. Note that the IPA diacritics are simplified;
some articulations would require two diacritics to be fully specified, but
only one is used in order to keep the results legible without the need for
OpenType IPA fonts. Also, Ladefoged has resurrected an obsolete IPA symbol, the
under dot, to indicate apical postalveolar, and that notation is used
here. ^1 These sounds are usually just
transcribed ⟨ʂ ʐ⟩. Apical postalveolar and subapical palatal sibilants do not
contrast in any language, but if necessary, apical postalveolars can be
transcribed with an apical diacritic, as ⟨s̠̺ z̠̺⟩ or ⟨ʂ̺ ʐ̺⟩. Ladefoged
resurrects the old retroflex sub-dot for apical retroflexes, ⟨ṣ ẓ⟩ Also seen in
the literature on e.g. Hindi and Norwegian is ⟨ᶘ ᶚ⟩ – the domed
articulation of [ʃ ʒ] precludes a subapical realization.
= Whistled sibilants = Whistled sibilants occur in speech
pathology and may be caused by dental prostheses or orthodontics. However,
they also occur phonemically in several southern Bantu languages, the best known
being Shona. These have been variously described—as labialized but not
velarized, as retroflex, etc., but none of these articulations are required for
the sounds. Using the Extended IPA, Shona sv and zv may be transcribed ⟨s͎⟩
and ⟨z͎⟩. Other transcriptions seen include purely labialized ⟨s̫⟩ and ⟨z̫⟩
and labially co-articulated ⟨sᶲ⟩ and ⟨zᵝ⟩ or ⟨s͡ɸ⟩ and ⟨z͜β⟩. In the
otherwise IPA transcription of Shona in Doke, the whistled sibilants are
transcribed with non-IPA ⟨ȿ ɀ⟩ and ⟨tȿ dɀ⟩.
Linguistic contrasts among sibilants Not including differences in manner of
articulation or secondary articulation, some languages have as many as four
different types of sibilants. For example, Northern Qiang and Southern
Qiang have a four-way distinction among sibilant affricates , with one for
each of the four tongue shapes. Toda also has a four-way sibilant
distinction, with one alveolar, one palato-alveolar, and two retroflex.
The now-extinct Ubykh language is particularly complex, with a total of 27
sibilant consonants. Not only are all four tongue shapes represented, but both
the palato-alveolars and alveolo-palatals can additionally appear
labialized. On top of that, there is a five-way manner distinction among
voiceless and voiced fricatives, voiceless and voiced affricates, and
ejective affricates. The Bzyp dialect of the related Abkhaz language also has a
similar inventory. Some languages have four types when
palatalization is considered. Polish is one example, with both palatalized and
non-palatalized laminal denti-alveolars, laminal postalveolar, and
alveolo-palatal. Russian has the same surface contrasts, but the
alveolo-palatals are arguably not phonemic. They only occur geminate,
whereas the retroflex consonants never occur geminate, suggesting that both are
allophones of the same phoneme. Somewhat more common are languages with
three sibilant types, including one hissing and two hushing. As with Polish
and Russian, the two hushing types are usually postalveolar and
alveolo-palatal, since these are the two most distinct from each other. Mandarin
Chinese is an example of such a language. However, other possibilities
exist. Serbo-Croatian has alveolar, palato-alveolar and alveolo-palatal
affricates, whereas Basque has palato-alveolar and laminal and apical
alveolar fricatives and affricates. Extremely common are languages, such as
English, with two sibilant types, one hissing and one hushing. A wide variety
of languages across the world have this pattern. Perhaps most common is the
pattern, as in English, with alveolar and palato-alveolar sibilants. Modern
northern peninsular Spanish has a single apico-alveolar sibilant fricative [s̠],
as well as a single palato-alveolar sibilant affricate [tʃ]. However, there
are also languages with alveolar and apical retroflex sibilants, and with
alveolar and alveolo-palatal postalveolars.
Few languages with sibilants are missing the hissing type, but they do exist.
Middle Vietnamese is normally reconstructed with two sibilant
fricatives, both hushing. Some languages have only a single hushing sibilant and
no hissing sibilant, such as southern peninsular Spanish dialects of the
"ceceo" type which have replaced the former hissing fricative with [θ],
leaving only [tʃ]. Languages with no sibilants are fairly
rare. Most have no fricatives at all, or no fricatives apart from . Examples
include most Australian languages, Hawaiian and Rotokas, and what is
generally reconstructed for Proto-Bantu. Languages with fricatives but no
sibilants do however occur; one is Ukue of Nigeria, which has only the
fricatives /f, v, h/. Contested definitions
Authors including Chomsky and Halle group [f] and [v] as sibilants. However,
they do not have the grooved articulation and high frequencies of
other sibilants, and most phoneticians continue to group them together with
bilabial [ɸ], [β] anddental [θ], [ð] as non-sibilant anterior fricatives. For a
grouping of sibilants and [f, v], the term strident is more common. Some
researchers judge [f] to be non-strident in English, based on measurements of its
comparative amplitude, but to be strident in other languages.
The nature of sibilants as so-called 'obstacle fricatives' is complicated –
there is a continuum of possibilities relating to the angle at which the jet
of air may strike an obstacle. The grooving often considered necessary for
classification as a sibilant has been observed in ultrasound studies of the
tongue for the supposedly non-sibilant voiceless alveolar fricative [θ] of
English. See also
De-essing Plosive consonant
Sj-sound Strident vowel
Voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant Voiced apicoalveolar fricative
Notes References
Bright, William, "Sibilants and naturalness in aboriginal California",
Journal of California Anthropology, Papers in Linguistics 1: 39–63
Dalbor, John B., "Observations on Present-Day Seseo and Ceceo in Southern
Spain", Hispania 63: 5–19, doi:10.2307/340806, JSTOR 340806
Hualde, José Ignacio, Basque phonology, London: Routledge, JSTOR 340806
Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian. The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford:
Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8. Obaid, Antonio H., "The Vagaries of the
Spanish 'S'", Hispania 56: 60–67, doi:10.2307/339038, JSTOR 339038
Shosted, Ryan K. Just put your lips together and blow? The whistled
fricatives of Southern Bantu.