Talk:Postalveolar consonant

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Moved for three reasons:

1. Conform to IPA usage
2. Conform to terminology used in most Wikipedia articles
3. Avoid confustion between alveolo-palatal fricatives (/ɕ/ and /ʑ/) and postalveolar ("palato-alveolar") fricatives (/ʃ/ and /ʒ/); these are not the same

—Tkinias 20:55, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The terminology is confusing. I know the official IPA chart lists [ʃ] and [ʒ] in a column labeled "postalveolar" (not "palato-alveolar", but they need not be our only source. In A Course in Phonetics (pp. 144 of the 4th edn.), Peter Ladefoged writes of [ɕ, ʑ]:

"They are similar to [ʃ, ʒ], but have considerable raising of the front of the tongue. They are also made in the post-alveolar region." (emphasis mine)

On the previous page he says it's possible to describe both retroflex and palato-alveolar sounds as "post-alveolar", the difference between them being that retroflexes are apical while palato-alveolars are laminal. If we follow his suggestions, then Postalveolar consonant should be in effect a disambig page, saying this is a cover term for Palato-alveolar consonants (which should then be on a separate page), Alveolo-palatal consonants, and Retroflex consonants. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 17:06, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I think it would be best to go with your suggestion, Angr. I added disambiguating wording to the postalveolar article some time ago, but was reluctant to actually move it because the word is so commonly used to mean palato-alveolar. I can anticipate one objection to the move: 'The terms "palato-alveolar" and "alveolo-palatal" are too similar to be easily distinguished by most people.' That's why the label was changed to postalveolar on the IPA chart, for example. But if you're prepared to defend yourself against charges that you're confusing everyone, I'll throw my voice on your side.

We might want to leave the clicks where they are?

As for palato-alveolars, they aren't necessarily laminal or apical. In English they can be either. This according to Ladefoged in SOWL, though I think laminal might be more common. There are also languages which have only laminals, like Toda. (I had once put 'laminal' in all the articles, but removed it as I read further.) L calls them 'domed' postalveolars, which he says is effectively partial palatalization. Alveolo-palatals are fully palatalized, and therefore laminal. However, retroflexes are defined negatively, by not being palatalized, rather than by being apical. They may be apical, as in Hindi; or laminal, as in Polish and Mandarin; or subapical, as in Tamil. This all according to SOWL.

By the way, since Ladefoged is the editor of the IPA Journal, and his argumentation is much more detailed than, say, the IPA Handbook, I think he's a far better source than the IPA. kwami 19:04, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I think if people can learn to distinguish between American Indians and Indian Americans, they can learn to distinguish between palato-alveolars and alveolo-palatals! I do think the clicks should stay at "postalveolar" since it isn't clear that they're palato-alveolar in the same way that [ʃ, ʒ] are. We don't have to say palato-alveolars are necessarily laminal and retroflexes necessarily apical, just that "postalveolar" is a cover term for all three, but that clicks are hard to define as one of the three and so are best described more vaguely as postalveolar. (Does any language contrast retroflex and (post)alveolar clicks?) --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 19:17, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The "retroflex" clicks are apical alveolar or postalvolar (subapical in at least one dialect of one language), while the "palatal" clicks are laminal postalveolars. (They make very broad contact with the mouth, however, so calling them postalveolars might be debatable.) Damin seems to have contrasted apical alveolar and apical postalveolar clicks, but it's extinct and and not well described; the interpretation of the clicks in that article are based on the standard plosive articulations found in Oz, and so the details might easily be wrong. See Click_consonant#Inventories_of_click_releases.

I've never seen any clicks described as palatalized. In so far as that's true, and they actually are postalveolar, both the "retroflex" and "palatal" clicks would be retroflex by the definition of 'non-palatalized postalveolar'. However, actually classifying them this way might cause a lot of argument. For one thing, the 'retroflex' might be alveolar in many languages, and the 'palatal' is somewhat vague as to its position. kwami 19:44, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Laminal Fricatives and Alveolo-Palatals

Is Ladefoged our only reference here? The article seems to imply postalveolar laminal and retroflex laminal are the same sound.

Indeed, the relevant Polish and Mandarin fricatives/affricates are decribed using both sound classifications seemingly interchangeably across various wikipedia articles. However, the Polish and Mandarin versions of the sounds do not sound the same. In fact, I would be inclined to clasify Polish as postalveolar laminal and Mandarin as retroflex laminal.

Similarly the Mandarin alveolo-palatal fricatives sound nothing like the Polish ones in any Mandarin I've ever heard spoken and I'd much sooner clasify them as palatals.

It would be really great to get some expert opinion in here, and if necessary, clean some of this up (at the very least disambiguate as much as possible). -- Het 14:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)