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Velopharyngeal consonant

Sounds found in some disordered speech From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Velopharyngeal consonant
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The velopharyngeal fricatives, also known as the posterior nasal fricatives, are a family of sounds produced principally by people with a cleft palate, as substitutes for sibilants (which in English are /s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ, tr, dr/). These are "the so-called 'nasal snort', in which (usually loud) friction results from leakage through a tense, but incompletely occluded, velopharyngeal port,"[1] and results from "the approximation but inadequate closure of the upper border of the velum and the posterior pharyngeal wall."[2] To produce a velopharyngeal fricative, the soft palate approaches the pharyngeal wall and narrows the velopharyngeal port, such that the restricted port creates fricative turbulence in air forced through it into the nasal cavity. The articulation may be aided by a posterior positioning of the tongue and may involve velar flutter (a snorting sound).[3][4]

Quick facts Voiceless velopharyngeal fricative, ʩ ...
Quick facts Voiced velopharyngeal fricative, ʩ̬ ...
Quick facts Voiceless velopharyngeal trill, 𝼀 ...

The term 'velopharyngeal' indicates "articulation between the upper surface of the velum and the back wall of the naso-pharynx."[5]

The base symbol for a velopharyngeal fricative in the extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for disordered speech is ʩ, and secondary articulation is indicated with a superscript [𐞐].[note 1] The following variants are described:

  • A voiceless velopharyngeal fricative [ʩ]
  • A voiced velopharyngeal fricative [ʩ̬]
  • A velopharyngeal fricative trill or "snort" (much as epiglottal fricatives tend to be trilled):
    • voiceless [𝼀]
    • voiced [𝼀̬]
  • Other consonants accompanied by velopharyngeal frication, such as [s𐞐], potentially transcribed s𐞐𐞪 to overtly indicate accompanying trill.
Quick facts ◌𐞐, ◌͌ ...

The letter [𝼀] for the trill was only adopted in 2015; before then the letter ʩ had stood for both. Some authorities describe the trilled velopharyngeals as being accompanied by uvular trill rather than velar flutter. Whether this is a difference in interpretation or of pronunciation, it would be explicitly transcribed with a superscript ʀ: voiceless [ʩ𐞪] and voiced [ʩ̬𐞪].

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See also

Notes

  1. A double tilde, ◌͌, was used prior to 2024.[6]

References

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