Voiced dental fricative

Voiced dental fricative
ð
IPA number 131
Encoding
Entity (decimal) ð
Unicode (hex) U+00F0
X-SAMPA D
Kirshenbaum D
Braille ⠻ (braille pattern dots-12456)
Sound
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Voiced dental approximant
ð
ð̞
Sound
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The voiced dental fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the th sound in father. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is eth, or [ð]. This was taken from the Old English letter eth, which could stand for either a voiced or unvoiced interdental non-sibilant fricative. This symbol is also sometimes used to represent the dental approximant, a similar sound not known to contrast with a dental non-sibilant fricative in any language,[1] though that is more clearly written with the lowering diacritic, ⟨ð̞⟩. The dental non-sibilant fricatives are often called "interdental" because they are often produced with the tongue between the upper and lower teeth, and not just against the back of the upper teeth, as they are with other dental consonants.

This sound, and its unvoiced counterpart, are rare phonemes. The great majority of language of Europe and Asia, such as German, French, Persian, Japanese, and Mandarin, lack this sound. Native speakers of those languages in which the sound is not present often have difficulty enunciating or distinguishing it, and replace it with a voiced alveolar sibilant [z], a voiced dental stop or voiced alveolar stop [d], or a voiced labiodental fricative [v]; known respectively as th-alveolarization, th-stopping, and th-fronting. As for Europe, there seems to be a great arc where this sound (and or the unvoiced variant) is present. Most of mainland Europe lacks the sound. However, some "periphery" languages as Gascon, Welsh, English, Elfdalian, Northern Sami, Mari, Greek, Albanian, Sardinian, some dialects of Basque and most speakers of Spanish have this sound in their consonant inventories, as phonemes or allophones.

Within Turkic languages, Bashkir and Turkmen have both voiced and voiceless dental non-sibilant fricatives among their consonants. Among Semitic languages, they are used in Standard Arabic.

Features

Features of the voiced dental non-sibilant fricative:

Occurrence

In the following transcriptions, the undertack diacritic may be used to indicate an approximant [ð̞].

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Albanian idhull [iðuɫ] 'idol'
Aleut Atkan dialect dax̂ [ðɑχ] 'eye'
Arabic Standard[2] ذهب [ˈðahab] 'gold' See Arabic phonology
Aromanian[3] zală [ðalə] 'butter whey' Corresponds to [z] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic wada [waːð̞a] 'to do' or 'to make' Common in the Tyari, Barwari and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic dialects.
Corresponds to [d] in other varieties.
Bashkir ҡаҙ  [qɑð]  'goose'
Basque[4] adar [að̞ar] 'horn' Allophone of /d/
Berber Kabyle ḏuḇ [ðuβ] 'to be exhausted'
Berta [fɛ̀ːðɑ̀nɑ́] 'to sweep'
Catalan[5] fada [ˈfað̞ə] 'fairy' Allophone of /d/. See Catalan phonology
Elfdalian baiða [ˈbaɪða] 'wait'
English this [ðɪs] 'this' See English phonology
Fijian ciwa [ðiwa] 'nine'
German Austrian[6] leider [ˈlaɛ̯ða] 'unfortunately' Intervocalic allophone of /d/ in casual speech. See German phonology
Greek δάφνη dáfni [ˈðafni] 'laurel' See Modern Greek phonology
Gwich’in niidhàn [niːðân] 'you want'
Harsusi [ðebeːr] 'bee'
Hän ë̀dhä̀ [ə̂ðɑ̂] 'hide'
Hebrew Iraqi אדוני  [ʔaðoˈnaj]  'my lord' Commonly pronounced [d]. See Modern Hebrew phonology
Kagayanen[7] ? [kað̞aɡ] 'spirit'
Mari Eastern dialect шодо [ʃoðo] 'lung'
Northern Sami dieđa [d̥ieðɑ] 'science'
Norman Jèrriais méthe [með] 'mother'
Norwegian Meldal dialect[8] i [ð̩˕ʲː] 'in' Syllabic palatalized frictionless approximant[8] corresponding to /iː/ in Standard Eastern Norwegian. See Norwegian phonology
Occitan Gascon que divi [ke ˈð̞iwi] 'what I should' Allophone of /d/. See Occitan phonology
Portuguese European[9] nada [ˈn̪äðɐ] 'nothing' Northern and central dialects. Allophone of /d/, mainly after an oral vowel.[10] See Portuguese phonology
Fluminense
 compadre [kũˈpaðɾi] 'compadre', 'buddy' Allophone of postvocalic /d/ in consonant clusters with /ɾ/, in relaxed speech
Sioux Lakota ? [ˈðaptã] 'five'
Sardinian nidu  [ˈnið̞u]  'nest' Allophone of /d/
Spanish Most dialects[11] dedo [ˈd̪e̞ð̞o̞] 'finger' Allophone of /d/. See Spanish phonology
Peninsular[12] jazmín [xäðˈmĩn] 'Jasmine' Allophone of /θ/ before voiced consonants, often in free variation with /θ/
Swahili dhambi [ðɑmbi] 'sin'
Swedish Central Standard[13] bada [ˈbɑːð̞ä] 'to take a bath' An approximant;[13] allophone of /d/ in casual speech. See Swedish phonology
Some dialects[8] i [ð̩˕ʲː] 'in' A syllabic palatalized frictionless approximant[8] corresponding to /iː/ in Central Standard Swedish. See Swedish phonology
Syriac Western Neo-Aramaic ܐܚܕ [aħːeð] 'to take'
Tamil ஒன்பது [onbʌðɯ] 'nine' See Tamil phonology
Tanacross dhet [ðet] 'liver'
Turkmen gaz [ɡäːð] 'goose'
Tutchone Northern edhó [eðǒ] 'hide'
Southern adhǜ [aðɨ̂]
Welsh bardd [barð] 'bard' See Welsh phonology
Zapotec Tilquiapan[14] Allophone of /d/

Danish [ð] is actually a weak,[15] velarized[15][16] alveolar approximant.[15][16]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Olson et al. (2010:210)
  2. ↑ Thelwall & Sa'Adeddin (1990:37)
  3. ↑ Pop (1938), p. 30.
  4. ↑ Hualde (1991:99–100)
  5. ↑ Carbonell & Llisterri (1992:55)
  6. ↑ Sylvia Moosmüller (2007). "Vowels in Standard Austrian German: An Acoustic-Phonetic and Phonological Analysis" (PDF). p. 6. Retrieved March 9, 2013.
  7. ↑ Olson et al. (2010:206–207)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Vanvik (1979:14)
  9. ↑ Cruz-Ferreira (1995:92)
  10. ↑ Mateus & d'Andrade (2000:11)
  11. ↑ Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003:255)
  12. ↑ Cotton & Sharp (1988:19)
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Engstrand (2004:167)
  14. ↑ Merrill (2008:109)
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Grønnum (2003:121)
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Basbøll (2005:59 and 63)

Bibliography

  • Basbøll, Hans (2005), The Phonology of Danish, ISBN 0-19-824268-9
  • Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (1–2): 53–56, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004618
  • Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223
  • Engstrand, Olle (2004), Fonetikens grunder (in Swedish), Lund: Studenlitteratur, ISBN 91-44-04238-8
  • Grønnum, Nina (2003), Why are the Danes so hard to understand?
  • Hualde, José Ignacio (1991), Basque phonology, New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-05655-7
  • Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255–259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373
  • Cotton, Eleanor Greet; Sharp, John (1988), Spanish in the Americas, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 978-0-87840-094-2
  • Mateus, Maria Helena; d'Andrade, Ernesto (2000), The Phonology of Portuguese, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-823581-X
  • Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (1): 107–114, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344
  • Olson, Kenneth; Mielke, Jeff; Sanicas-Daguman, Josephine; Pebley, Carol Jean; Paterson, Hugh J., III (2010), "The phonetic status of the (inter)dental approximant", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 40 (2): 199–215, doi:10.1017/S0025100309990296
  • Pop, Sever (1938), Micul Atlas Linguistic Român, Muzeul Limbii Române Cluj
  • Thelwall, Robin; Sa'Adeddin, M. Akram (1990), "Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20 (2): 37–41, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004266
  • Vanvik, Arne (1979), Norsk fonetik, Oslo: Universitetet i Oslo, ISBN 82-990584-0-6