Palato-alveolar ejective affricate

The palato-alveolar ejective affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨t͡ʃʼ⟩. In some languages it is equivalent to a palatal ejective.

Features

Features of the palato-alveolar ejective affricate:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the air flow entirely, then directing it with the tongue to the sharp edge of the teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is palato-alveolar, that is, domed (partially palatalized) postalveolar, which means it is articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the front of the tongue bunched up ("domed") at the palate.
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is ejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping the glottis upward.

Occurrence

See also

• List of phonetic topics