Voiced postalveolar fricative
The
voiced palato-alveolar fricative or
domed postalveolar fricative is a type of
consonantal sound, used in some
spoken languages. The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent
X-SAMPA symbol is
Z. An alternative commonly used in linguistic works, particularly in older or American literature, is ž.
Features of the voiced postalveolar fricative:
* Its
manner of articulation is
sibilant fricative, which means it is produced by directing air flow through a groove in the tongue at the place of articulation and directing it over the sharp edge of the teeth, causing high-frequency
turbulence.
* Its
place of articulation is
palato-alveolar, that is, domed (partially
palatalized)
postalveolar, which means it is articulated with the front of the
tongue behind the
alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue bunched up ("domed") at the
palate.
* It is an
oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
* It is a
central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
* The
airstream mechanism is
pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the
lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the
glottis or the mouth.
The voiced postalveolar fricative occurs in English, although in only a handful of words, and is the sound denoted by the letter 's' in
treasure and the final sound of the word
mirage. One of the very few minimal contrasts of the voiced and voiceless postalveolar fricatives (for some dialects only) is the pair of words
allusion and
Aleutian. It usually occurs medially, but may occur word-initially or word-finally in relatively recent borrowings from
French.
In English the sound is labialized, , although few transcriptions bother with this level of detail.
The sound is more common in
French,
Occitan and
Catalan, where it is represented by the letters
j and
g. In those languages, the consonant is labialized, , as in English.
The sound is also notable in
Rioplatense Spanish, spoken in
Argentina and
Uruguay, where the consonant
ll takes on the sound.
It also occurs in
Russian,
Belarusian,
Ukrainian, and
Bulgarian as a realization of , represented by the letter
Ж (zhe).
It also occurs in
Czech,
Slovak,
Croatian,
Serbian and
Latvian, where it is represented by the letter
Ž, ž.
In
Polish, the sound is represented with the letter
ż.
In
Portuguese, represented by the letter
J.
It also occurs in
Hungarian, represented by the digraph
zs (see
Hungarian zs).
It also occurs in
Ido, represented by the letter
J.
It also occurs in
Esperanto, represented by the letter
Ĵ.
It also occurs word-initially and word-medially in
Ladino.
*
Ezh*
List of phonetics topics
