Voiceless uvular fricative

The voiceless uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨χ⟩, or in broad transcription ⟨x⟩. The sound is represented by ⟨x̣⟩ (ex with underdot) in Americanist phonetic notation.

Features

Features of the voiceless uvular fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is uvular, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the uvula.
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• 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

• List of phonetics topics

References

Bibliography

• Hall, Tracy Alan (1993). "The phonology of German /ʀ/". Phonology 10 (1): 83–105. doi:10.1017/S0952675700001743 
• Hess, Wolfgang (2001). "Funktionale Phonetik und Phonologie". Grundlagen der Phonetik. Bonn: Institut für Kommunikationsforschung und Phonetik, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität. http://www.oefai.at/~hannes/esslli03/hess_signalproc_kap3.pdf. 
• Kohler, Klaus (1990). "Comment on German". Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20 (02): 44–46. doi:10.1017/S002510030000428X 
• Watson, Janet (2002). The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic. New York: Oxford University Press.