Advanced tongue root
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In phonetics, advanced tongue root, abbreviated ATR or +ATR, or expanded, is the expansion of the pharyngeal cavity by moving the base of the tongue forward, and often lowering the larynx, during the pronunciation of a vowel. The lowering of the larynx sometimes adds a breathy quality to the vowel.
The diacritic for ATR in the International Phonetic Alphabet is the left tack, [ ̘].
In languages where they occur, advanced tongue root vowels very often contrast with retracted tongue root vowels in a system of vowel harmony. This is ubiquitous in large parts of West Africa.
ATR vowels involve a certain tension in the tongue, and often in the lips and jaw as well; This tension can often be heard as a "brightness" (narrow formants) compared to RTR vowels. Nonetheless, they are not referred to as tense vowels, since the word tense already has several meanings in European phonetics.
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