Tenuis consonant
Obstruent that is voiceless, unaspirated and unglottalized / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In linguistics, a tenuis consonant (/ˈtɛn.juːɪs/ or /ˈtɛnuːɪs/)[2] is an obstruent that is voiceless, unaspirated and unglottalized.
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (June 2018) |
Tenuis | |
---|---|
◌˭ | |
Encoding | |
Entity (decimal) | ˭ |
Unicode (hex) | U+02ED |
In other words, it has the "plain" phonation of [p, t, ts, tʃ, k] with a voice onset time close to zero (a zero-VOT consonant), as Spanish p, t, ch, k or English p, t, k after s (spy, sty, sky).
For most languages, the distinction is relevant only for stops and affricates. However, a few languages have analogous series for fricatives. Mazahua, for example, has ejective, aspirated, and voiced fricatives /sʼ sʰ z/ alongside tenuis /s/, parallel to stops /ɗ tʼ tʰ d/ alongside tenuis /t/.
Many click languages have tenuis click consonants alongside voiced, aspirated, and glottalized series.