Alveolo-palatal consonant

type of consonant

In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants are palatalized postalveolar sounds. They are usually fricatives and affricates. We pronounce them with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate. These consonants are similar to palato-alveolar consonants, but alveolo-palatal consonants are more fully palatalized.

Sagittal section of alveolo-palatal fricative
Places of
articulation

Labial
Bilabial
Labial–velar
Labial–coronal
Labiodental
Dentolabial

Bidental

Coronal
Linguolabial
Interdental
Dental
Denti-alveolar
Alveolar
Postalveolar
Palato-alveolar
Alveolo-palatal
Retroflex

Dorsal
Palatal
Labial–palatal
Velar
Uvular
Uvular–epiglottal

Radical
Pharyngeal
Epiglotto-pharyngeal
Epiglottal

Glottal

Peripheral
Tongue shape

Apical
Laminal
Subapical

Lateral
Sulcal

Palatal
Pharyngeal

See also: Manner of articulation
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Sibilants

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We often use the alveolo-palatal sibilants in the Chinese languages (e.g.Mandarin, Hakka, and Wu), and other languages in the East Asian sprachbund (e.g.Japanese and Korean). Many slavic languages (e.g.Polish, Russian and Serbo-Croatian) also contains alveolo-palatal sibilants. Northwest Caucasian languages (e.g. Abkhaz and Ubykh) also use this consonant. Kinnauri uses an alveolo-palatal nasal. The alveolo-palatal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA Description Example
Language Orthography IPA Meaning
ɕ Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative Mandarin (xiǎo) [ɕiɑu˨˩˦] small
ʑ Voiced alveolo-palatal fricative Polish zioło [ʑɔwɔ] herb
t͡ɕ Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate Serbo-Croatian kuća/кућа [kut͡ɕa] house
d͡ʑ Voiced alveolo-palatal affricate Japanese 地震 (jishin) [d͡ʑiɕĩɴ] earthquake

Stops, nasals and liquids

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The sinological circles sometimes use (ȶ, ȡ), (ȵ), and (ȴ) for alveolo-palatal plosives, nasals and liquids. But the IPA does not accept these symbols. We sometimes use these symbol to represent simple palatal or platalized consonants.

We consider the Polish nasal (represented with the letter ń) to be alveolo-palatal, but not palatal. And the "palatal" consonants of several Indigenous Australian languages are also sometimes judged closer to alveolo-palatal in their articulation.

Non-standard IPA Description Example
Language Orthography Non-standard IPA Standard IPA Meaning
ȶ Voiceless alveolo-palatal stop Korean Hangul: 티끌/tikkeul [ȶʰiʔk̤ɯl] [t̠ʲʰiʔk̤ɯl] dust
ȡ Voiced alveolo-palatal stop Korean Hangul: 반디/bandi [b̥ɐnȡi] [b̥ɐnd̠ʲi] firefly
ȵ Alveolo-palatal nasal Yi language ꑌ (nyi) [ȵi˧] [ṉʲi˧] sit
ȴ Alveolo-palatal lateral Catalan ull [ˈuȴ] [ˈuḻʲ] eye

References

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  • Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.