The voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant fricative or voiceless domed
postalveolar sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in many
spoken languages, including English. In English, it is usually represented in
writing with ⟨sh⟩, as in ship. The symbol in the International Phonetic
Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʃ⟩, the letter esh introduced by Isaac
Pitman. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is S.
An alternative symbol is ⟨š⟩, an s with a háček, which is used in the
Americanist phonetic notation and the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet, as well as in
the scientific and ISO 9 transliterations of Cyrillic. It
originated with the Czech alphabet of Jan Hus and was adopted in Gaj's Latin
alphabet and other Latin alphabets of Slavic languages. It also features in
the orthographies of many Baltic, Finno-Lappic, North American and African
languages. Some scholars use the symbol to
transcribe the laminal variant of the voiceless retroflex sibilant. In such
cases, the voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant is transcribed
. Features
Features of the voiceless palato-alveolar 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 palato-alveolar, that is, domed
postalveolar, which means it is articulated with the blade of the tongue
behind the alveolar ridge, and the front of the tongue bunched up at the palate.
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 In various languages, including English
and French, it may have simultaneous lip rounding, i.e. [ʃʷ], although this is
usually not transcribed. Classical Latin did not have [ʃ], though
it does occur in most Romance languages. For example, ⟨ch⟩ in French chanteur
"singer" is pronounced . "chanteur" is descended from Latin cantare, where ⟨c⟩
was pronounced . ⟨sc⟩ in Latin scientia "science" was pronounced , but has
shifted to in Italian scienza. Similarly, Proto-Germanic had neither
[ʃ] nor [ʂ], yet many of its descendants do. In most cases, this [ʃ] or [ʂ]
descends from a Proto-Germanic . For instance, Proto-Germanic *skipą was
pronounced . The English word "ship" has been pronounced without the the
longest, the word being descended from Old English "scip" , which already also
had the [ʃ], though the Old English spelling etymologically indicated that
the old had once been present. This change took a good bit longer to
catch on in West Germanic languages other than Old English, but it
eventually did. The second West Germanic language to undergo this sound shift was
Old High German. In fact, it has been argued that Old High German's was
actually already [s̠k], because a single [s] had already shifted to [s̠].
Furthermore, by Middle High German, that had shifted to [ʃ]. After High German,
the shift most likely then occurred in Low Saxon. After Low Saxon, Middle Dutch
began the shift, but it stopped shifting once it reached , and has kept that
pronunciation since. Then, most likely through influence from German and Low
Saxon, North Frisian experienced the shift.
Then, Swedish quite swiftly underwent the shift, which resulted in the very
uncommon [ɧ] phoneme, which, aside from Swedish, is only used in Colognian, a
variety of High German, though not as a replacement for the standard High German
but a coronalized . However, the exact realization of Swedish varies
considerably among dialects; for instance, in Northern dialects it tends
to be realized as [ʂ]. See sj-sound for more details. Finally, the last to
undergo the shift was Norwegian, in which the result of the shift was [ʃ].
The sound in Russian denoted by ⟨ш⟩ is commonly transcribed as a
palato-alveolar fricative but is actually a laminal retroflex fricative.
Voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative
The voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative is a consonantal sound. As the
International Phonetic Alphabet does not have separate symbols for the
post-alveolar consonants, this sound is usually transcribed ⟨ɹ̠̊˔⟩. The
equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\_-_0_r. = Features =
Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by
constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation,
causing turbulence. However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed
airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
Its place of articulation is postalveolar, which means it is
articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar
ridge. 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 =
See also Index of phonetics articles
Cedilla References
Bibliography