Alveolar approximant

The alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the alveolar and postalveolar approximants is ⟨ɹ⟩, a lowercase letter r rotated 180 degrees, or in broad transcription ⟨r⟩; the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ⟨r\⟩.

For ease of typesetting, the vast majority of English phonemic transcriptions use the symbol ⟨r⟩ instead of ⟨ɹ⟩, even though the former symbol technically represents the alveolar trill.

Features

Features of the alveolar approximant:

• Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but not enough to produce a turbulent airstream.
• Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• 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 pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

See also

• Alveolar lateral approximant
• Velarized alveolar approximant
• List of phonetic topics

Notes

References

• Boyce, S.; Espy-Wilson, C. (1997), "Coarticulatory stability in American English /r/", Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 101 (6): 3741–3753, doi:10.1121/1.418333, PMID 9193061 
• Browman, L.; Goldstein (1995), "Gestural syllable position in American English", in Bell-Berti, F., Producing Speech: Contemporary issues for K Harris, New York: AIP, pp. 9–33 
• Delattre, P.; Freeman, D.C. (1968), "A dialect study of American R's by x-ray motion picture", Linguistics 44: 29–68 
• Fougeron, C (1999), "Prosodically conditioned articulatory variation: A Review", UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, 97, pp. 1–73 
• Hallé, Pierre A.; Best, Catherine T.; Levitt, Andrea; Andrea (1999), "Phonetic vs. phonological influences on French listeners' perception of American English approximants", Journal of Phonetics 27 (3): 281–306, doi:10.1006/jpho.1999.0097 
• Kohler, Klaus (1995), Einführung in die Phonetik des Deutschen, Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag 
• Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (1): 107–114 
• Recasens, Daniel (2004), "The effect of syllable position on consonant reduction (evidence fromCatalan consonant clusters)", Journal of Phonetics 32 (3): 435–453, doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2004.02.001 
• Zawadski, P.A.; Kuehn, D.P. (1980), "A cineradiographic study of static and dynamic aspects of American English /r/", Phonetica 37 (4): 253–266, doi:10.1159/000259995, PMID 7443796