Consonant pronounced without the larynx vibrating
Voiceless
|
---|
|
|
Entity
(decimal)
| ̥
|
---|
Unicode
(hex)
| U+0325
|
---|
In
linguistics
,
voicelessness
is the property of sounds being pronounced without the
larynx
vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of
phonation
, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies
voicing
and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation.
The
International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA) has distinct letters for many voiceless and
modally voiced
pairs of consonants (the
obstruents
), such as
[p
b],
[t
d],
[k
?],
[q
?],
[f
v],
and
[s
z]
. Also, there are diacritics for voicelessness,
U+
0325
?̥
COMBINING RING BELOW
and
U+
030A
?̊
COMBINING RING ABOVE
, which is used for letters with a
descender
. Diacritics are typically used with letters for prototypically voiced sounds, such as
vowels
and
sonorant consonants
:
[?],
[l?],
[ŋ?]
.
In Russian use of the IPA, the voicing diacritic may be turned for voicelessness, e.g. ⟨
?
⟩.
[1]
Voiceless vowels and other sonorants
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edit
]
Sonorants
are sounds such as vowels and
nasals
that are voiced in most of the world's languages. However, in some languages sonorants may be voiceless, usually
allophonically
. For example, the
Japanese
word
sukiyaki
is pronounced
[s??kijaki]
and may sound like
[skijaki]
to an English speaker, but the lips can be seen to compress for the
[??]
. Something similar happens in
English
words like
p
e
culiar
[p????kj?uːli?]
and
p
o
tato
[p????t?e???o??]
.
Voiceless vowels are also an areal feature in languages of the
American Southwest
(like
Hopi
and
Keres
), the
Great Basin
(including all
Numic languages
), and the
Great Plains
, where they are present in Numic
Comanche
but also in
Algonquian
Cheyenne
, and the
Caddoan
language
Arikara
. It also occurs in
Woleaian
, in contrast to the other
Micronesian languages
, which instead delete it outright.
Sonorants may also be contrastively, not just environmentally, voiceless.
Standard Tibetan
, for example, has a voiceless
/l?/
in
Lhasa
, which sounds similar to but is less noisy than the
voiceless lateral fricative
/?/
in
Welsh
; it contrasts with a modally voiced
/l/
. Welsh contrasts several voiceless sonorants:
/m,
m?/
,
/n,
n?/
,
/ŋ,
ŋ?/
, and
/r,
r?/
, the last represented by "rh".
In
Moksha
, there is even a
voiceless palatal approximant
/j?/
(written in
Cyrillic
as
⟨
й
х
⟩
jh
) along with
/l?/
and
/r?/
(written as
⟨
л
х⟩
lh
and
⟨
р
х⟩
rh
). The last two have palatalized counterparts
/l??/
and
/r??/
(
⟨л
ь
х⟩
and
⟨рьх⟩
).
Kildin Sami
has also
/j?/
⟨
?
⟩
.
Contrastively voiceless vowels have been reported several times without ever being verified (L&M 1996:315).
Lack of voicing contrast in obstruents
[
edit
]
Many languages lack a distinction between voiced and voiceless
obstruents
(stops, affricates, and fricatives). This is the case in nearly all
Australian languages
, and is widespread elsewhere, for example in
Mandarin Chinese
,
Korean
,
Danish
,
Estonian
and the
Polynesian languages
.
In many such languages, obstruents are realized as voiced in voiced environments, such as between vowels or between a vowel and a nasal, and voiceless elsewhere, such as at the beginning or end of the word or next to another obstruent. That is the case in Dravidian and Australian languages and in Korean but not in Mandarin or Polynesian. Usually, the variable sounds are transcribed with the voiceless IPA letters, but for Australian languages, the letters for voiced consonants are often used.
It appears that voicelessness is not a single phenomenon in such languages. In some, such as the Polynesian languages, the vocal folds are required to actively open to allow an unimpeded (silent) airstream, which is sometimes called a
breathed
phonation (not to be confused with
breathy voice
). In others, such as many Australian languages, voicing ceases during the hold of a stop (few Australian languages have any other kind of obstruent) because airflow is insufficient to sustain it, and if the vocal folds open, that is only from passive relaxation.
Thus, Polynesian stops are reported to be held for longer than Australian stops and are seldom voiced, but Australian stops are prone to having voiced variants (L&M 1996:53), and the languages are often represented as having no phonemically voiceless consonants at all.
In
Southeast Asia
, when stops occur at the end of a word, they are voiceless because the glottis is closed, not open, so they are said to be unphonated (have no phonation) by some phoneticians, who considered "breathed" voicelessness to be a phonation.
[2]
Yidiny
consonants, with no underlyingly voiceless consonants, are posited.
[3]
References
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edit
]
Further reading
[
edit
]