Voiceless alveolar plosive

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Voiceless alveolar plosive
t
Image
IPA number	103
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	t
Unicode (hex)	U+0074
X-SAMPA	t
Kirshenbaum	t
Sound
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The voiceless alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is t, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t. The dental version can be distinguished with the underbridge diacritic (t̪; see voiceless dental plosive), and the Extensions to the IPA have a double underline diacritic which can be used to explicitly specify an alveolar pronunciation (t͇).

The [t] sound is a very common sound cross-linguistically; the most common consonant phonemes of the world's languages are [t], [k] and [p]. Most languages have at least a plain [t], and some distinguish more than one variety. Some languages without a [t] are Hawaiian (outside of Ni‘ihau; Hawaiian uses a voiceless velar plosive when adopting loanwords with [t]), colloquial Samoan (which also lacks an [n]), and Nǀu used in South Africa.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Features 2 Varieties 3 Occurrence 4 See also 5 References 6 Bibliography

[edit] Features

Here are features of the voiceless alveolar plosive:

• Its manner of articulation is stop, or plosive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. (The term plosive contrasts with nasal stops, where the blocked airflow is redirected through the nose.)
• Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal (the apical articulation is common in languages such as English, while the laminal articulation is common in, for example, the Romance languages).
• 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.

[edit] Varieties

IPA	Description
t	tenuis t
tʰ	aspirated t
tʲ	palatalized t
tʷ	labialized t
ⁿt	prenasalized t
tˤ	pharyngealized t
t̚	unreleased t
tʼ	ejective t

[edit] Occurrence

Present in nearly every language, the voiceless unaspirated alveolar stop is one of the most common phones cross-linguistically.^[1]

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Armenian		տուն	[tun] (help·info)	'house'
Chinese	Mandarin	大/dà	[ta˥˩]	'big'	Contrasts with aspirated form. See Mandarin phonology
Czech		toto	[toto]	'this'	See Czech phonology
Dutch[2]		taal	[taːl]	'language'	See Dutch phonology
English		tick	[tʰɪk]	'tick'	See English phonology
Finnish		parta	[pɑrtɑ]	'beard'	Allophone of the voiceless dental plosive. See Finnish phonology
French[3]		tordu	[tɔʀdy]	'crooked'	See French phonology
German		Tochter	[ˈtʰɔxtɐ]	'daughter'	See German phonology
Greek		τρία/tria	[ˈtria]	'three'	See Modern Greek phonology
Hungarian[4]		tutaj	[tutɒj]	'raft'	See Hungarian phonology
Japanese[5]		特別/tokubetsu	[tokɯbetsɯ]	'special'	See Japanese phonology
Korean		턱/teok	[tʰʌk̚̚ ]	'jaw'	See Korean phonology
Malay		tahun	[tahun]	'year'
Maltese		tassew	[tasˈsew]	'true, correct'
Norwegian		tann	[tʰɑn]	'tooth'	See Norwegian phonology
Nunggubuyu[6]		[taɾawa]		'greedy'
Slovak		to	[to]	'that'
Thai		ตา/ta	[taː˥˧]	'eye'
Vietnamese		ti	[ti]	'flaw, defect'	See Vietnamese phonology
Yi		ꄉ/da	[ta˧]	'put, place'	unaspirated form
		ꄣ/ta	[tʰa˧]	'earthen jar'	aspirated form

[edit] See also

• List of phonetics topics

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Fougeron, Cecile; Smith, Caroline L (1993), "Illustrations of the IPA:French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (2): 73–76 
• Gussenhoven, Carlos (1992), "Dutch", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (2): 45–47, doi:10.1017/S002510030000459X 
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell 
• Okada, Hideo (1991), "Phonetic Representation:Japanese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 21 (2): 94–97 
• Szende, Tamás (1994), "Illustrations of the IPA:Hungarian", Journal of the International Phonetic Alphabet 24 (2): 91–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005090 

v · d · e International Phonetic Alphabet  IPA topics IPA International Phonetic Association · History of the IPA · Kiel convention (1989) · Journal of the IPA (JIPA) · Naming conventions Phonetics Diacritics · Segments · Tone letter Special topics Extensions to the IPA · Obsolete and nonstandard symbols · IPA chart for English dialects Technical SAMPA · X-SAMPA · Conlang X-SAMPA · Kirshenbaum · TIPA · Phonetic symbols in Unicode  Consonants v · d · eIPA pulmonic consonants chartchart image • audio Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Radical Glottal ↓ Manner Bila​bial Labio​dental Den​tal Alve​olar Post​alv. Retro​flex Pal​a​tal Ve​lar Uvu​lar Pha​ryn​geal Epi​glot​tal Glot​tal Nasal m ɱ n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Plosive p b p̪ b̪ t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Fricative ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Approximant ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Trill ʙ r • * ʀ я * Flap or tap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̯ Lateral Fric. ɬ ɮ ɭ˔̊ ʎ̥˔ ʟ̝̊ Lateral Appr. l ɭ ʎ ʟ Lateral flap ɺ ɺ̢ * ʎ̯ Non-pulmonic consonants Clicks ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ Implosives ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ Ejectives pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ tsʼ tɬʼ tʃʼ kxʼ kʼ Affricates p̪f ts dz tʃ dʒ tɕ dʑ ʈʂ ɖʐ tɬ dɮ cç ɟʝ Co-articulated consonants Fricatives ɕ ʑ ɧ Approximants ʍ w ɥ ɫ Stops k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m These tables contain phonetic symbols, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] Where symbols appear in pairs, left—right represent the voiceless—voiced consonants. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged to be impossible. * Symbol not defined in IPA. Chart image Pulmonics · Non-pulmonics  · Affricates · Co-articulated  Vowels v · d · e IPA vowel chartimage •  audio Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close •iy •ɨʉ •ɯu •ɪʏ •ɪ̈ʊ̈ •ʊ •eø •ɘɵ •ɤo •e̞ø̞ ə •ɤ̞o̞ •ɛœ •ɜɞ •ʌɔ •æ ɐ •aɶ •ä •ɑɒ Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded.