Click Consonants

8 Key excerpts on "Click Consonants"

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  eBook - ePub

  The Bantu Languages

  • Mark Van de Velde, Koen Bostoen, Derek Nurse, Gérard Philippson, Mark Van de Velde, Koen Bostoen, Derek Nurse, Gérard Philippson(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Some speakers of Southern Ndebele S407 have a reduced click inventory (Schulz & Laine 2016). Click loss is an on-going process in Chopi (Bailey 1995) and in Imusho Fwe (Gunnink forthcoming). Sowetan Zulu S42, too, has a reduced number of Click Consonants, likely due to contact with Southern Sotho S33 (Gunnink 2014). A rapid reduction in the number of click contrasts occurred more than 100 years ago in the far-flung varieties of Nguni known as Ngoni N12 (Elmslie 1891, Spiss 1904, Doke 1954); Ngoni speakers subsequently shifted from Nguni to languages of the Manda N10 group (Maho 2003). Note that languages of Malawi and Tanzania are not shown on the map in Figure 3.21. Clicks have not been reported for Manda group languages and are unlikely to occur unless efforts to revitalise Malawian Ngoni on a Zulu model prove effective (Kishindo 2002). The mechanism of producing clicks is now fairly well understood and is illustrated by the sequence of midsagittal real-time MRI in Figure 3.22. A closure in the vocal tract is formed by the back of the tongue contacting the roof of the mouth in the velar or uvular area and a second closure is formed in front of the location of this closure by the tip or blade of the tongue or the lips, as shown at timestep 1. A small quantity of air is entrapped inside the sealed oral cavity. Although not seen in a mid-sagittal diagram, the sides of the tongue are also raised to complete the seal between anterior and dorsal closures. The center portion of the tongue is then lowered while the two main closures are maintained (timesteps 2–3), enlarging the volume of the space between them. In addition, there may be retraction of the tongue tip, dorsum or tongue root for some clicks (Miller 2008, Miller & Finch 2011). Expansion of the closed cavity causes the pressure in the air inside the space to be reduced well below that of the air outside the mouth

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  Phonetics

  The Science of Speech

  • Martin J Ball, Joan Rahilly(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The so-called simple clicks do, in fact, involve a combination between a velar closure (i.e. [k]) and the click place of articulation: although of course the [k] is not heard as it is overlapped by the click sound itself. In other instances, the accompaniment is heard. In transcribing click sounds therefore it is now usual to combine the [k] with the click symbol for a ‘simple click’ (using the tie-bar diacritic to show simultaneous articulation; see Chapter 7), and relevant other symbols for other combinations. Some of these can be seen in Table 4.9. Khoisan languages in particular can show a very large number of possible click combinations, and so to illustrate click use in language, we restrict ourselves to just some examples from !Xóõ as displayed in Table 4.10 (analysed by Traill, reported in Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996). The account of |Gui given by Nakagawa (1996) also demonstrates how complex click systems can be. Table 4.9 Some click combinations Table 4.10 Clicks in !Xó õ Further reading Again, we recommend phonetics texts such as Abercrombie (1967), Brosnahan and Malmberg (1970), Catford (1977, 1988), Clark and Yallop (1995), Ladefoged (1993) and Laver (1994) for an examination of obstruents, with Laver (1994) providing the most detailed account. Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996) illustrate a wide range of obstruents in different languages. Short questions 1 What consonants count as obstruents? 2 What are the three phases of the stop? Illustrate with diagrams. 3 Describe nasal and lateral release of stops with examples from English. 4 Describe the main ways in which fricatives can be sub-divided. 5 What is aspiration? Comment on stops and phonation. 6 How do trills and taps/flaps differ? 7 Describe the sequence of events needed to produce affricates. 8 How can Click Consonants be combined with other articulatory events? Essay questions 1 Describe the three stages of stop production and the range of modifications that can take place at these stages

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  The Sounds of Language

  An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology

  • Elizabeth C. Zsiga(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Again, it can help to place a finger on your throat so that you can feel if your larynx is moving. You’ll know you are producing an ejective if you can feel the larynx rise, and if you hear a short period of silence between the release of the stop and the beginning of the vowel, when the mouth is open but the larynx is still closed. That period of silence is an important cue to distinguishing this kind of stop.

  It is also possible to make ejective fricatives, affricates, and laterally-released stops. Although the fricative or lateral portion will be short, larynx raising can generate sufficient airflow for these articulations. They are found in Native American languages, and in Amharic (Ethiopia). Because the larynx must be closed, however, all ejective sounds are voiceless.

  3.3.3 Clicks

  The third kind of non-pulmonic consonants are the clicks , or velaric ingressive consonants. You probably already know how to make clicks: the “kiss-kiss” and “tsk-tsk” sounds are clicks. The trick is to incorporate them into the speech stream as consonants.

  Clicks begin with a closure of the tongue body against the velum or uvula. Then a second closure is made further forward, for example, the tongue front against the teeth. A small body of air is trapped between the two closures. The tongue body is then slid backward, without breaking the seal against the upper surface of the vocal tract, and the middle of the tongue is lowered. These actions make the pocket of air larger, and thus the air pressure in the pocket becomes lower. When the forward closure is released, a clicking sound is produced.

  Clicks can be made at the labial, dental, post-alveolar, and retroflex places. The labial click [ ] is the “kiss-kiss” sound, though it is generally made with the lips pressed flat together rather than pursed. (The bilabial is the rarest of the clicks.) The dental click ( ) is the “tsk-tsk” sound. Once you’ve practiced that a few times, try the alveolar (!) and palato-alveolar (‡) places, moving your tongue tip further back each time. You should be able to notice that as your tongue tip moves back, and the space under the tongue (the sub-lingual cavity ) gets bigger, the pitch of the click sound gets lower. If you articulate the click slowly, you may also be able to feel the tongue body moving back and the resulting pressure change pulling back on the tongue front. The lateral click [

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  Linguistics: A Complete Introduction: Teach Yourself

  • David Hornsby(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Teach Yourself

    (Publisher)

  Ʒ ] in English.

  The plosive sounds we identified earlier involve a complete closure of the vocal tract: they are, in other words, kinds of stop consonants. But not all stops are plosives: another set of consonants involves complete closure but these consonants are nonetheless continuous sounds: these are the nasals [m , n , ŋ ], which are produced by allowing air to pass through the nasal cavity.

  A final group of consonants, known as approximants, do not require closure of the vocal tract at all: the sounds are produced instead via the passage of air between articulators, which are close but not touching. Try producing the sound at the start of leap, and you’ll notice that the tip of the tongue touches the roof of the mouth around the alveolar ridge, but the passage of air which produces the sound actually passes along the sides of the tongue: for this reason this sound [l] is known as a lateral approximant. For most English speakers, the r sound in road is also an approximant, but this time the sides of the tongue are raised and the air passes through the gap between to produce a central approximant [ɹ ] (see Spotlight below).

  Spotlight: r-sounds

  Cross-linguistically, there are a lot of different types of r sound. The Scots trilled r [r], for example, is produced by repeated beating of the tongue tip against the alveolar ridge in intervocalic positions; the French r is usually a uvular fricative [ʁ ], produced by bringing the base of the tongue close to the uvula at the back of the soft palate (a similar variant is used in some Northumbrian English accents). Some Scots use a flapped or tapped r [ ], produced by rapidly striking the hard palate with the tongue tip, in intervocalic positions, e.g. in very: many Americans have the same sound in better or motor

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  School Success for Kids With Dyslexia and Other Reading Difficulties

  • Walter Dunson(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  / r /
• glides: sounds produced by moving the tongue rapidly in a gliding fashion either toward or away from a neighboring vowel. They are always preceded or followed by a vowel and include:
  • O lingua-palatal glide: / y /
  • O bilabial glide: / w /
• nasals: sounds produced as air is emitted through the nasal cavity, such as:
  • O bilabial nasal: / m /
  • O lingua-alveolar nasal: /n/
  • O lingua-velar nasal: / ng /

Understanding Consonants

The 21 consonants in the English language take on various sounds and pronunciations. Table 3 provides a breakdown of each consonant, its pronunciation, and a key word for each consonant. The table also shares some notes for when the pronunciations of consonants differ.

Hie specific articulation of consonants takes place using different parts of the articulatory tract. Knowledge of the oral mechanics required to generate consonant sounds provides students with an additional tactile tool as manipulation of the tract of articulation allows students struggling with auditory discrimination issues to better isolate individual sounds. For example, if students feel the back of the tongue rise to the velum (hard palate) and move forward, scraping gently, there are only two sounds that may be generated using this sequence of oral movements: the “k” or the “g.”

The consonants are articulated in the following manner:

• / p /,./ b /, and / m /: Hie bilabials (/ p /, / b /, and /m/) are articulated by pressing both lips together. For the unvoiced / p /, the lips are closed. Slight air pressure is built up. A light puff of air is exploded through the oral cavity by the sudden parting of the lips. Voice is added for / b /. For / m /, the voiced breath stream is emitted through the nasal cavity.
• /f/ and / v/: The labio-dentals (/f / and / v /) are articulated by touching the bottom lip to the upper teeth. For / f/, the lower lip approximates the upper incisors. Friction is created as air is emitted through the oral cavity between the teeth and lip. For / v