Voiceless alveolar fricative

A voiceless alveolar fricative is a type of fricative consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are at least six types with significant perceptual differences:

• The voiceless alveolar sibilant [s] has a strong hissing sound, as the s in English sin. It is one of the most common sounds in the world.
• The voiceless denti-alveolar sibilant [s̄] (an ad hoc notation), also called apico-dental, has a weaker lisping sound like English th in thin. It occurs in Spanish dialects in southern Spain (eastern Andalusia).
• The voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant [s̺], also called apico-alveolar or grave, has a weak hushing sound reminiscent of retroflex fricatives. It is used in the languages of northern Iberia, like Astur-Leonese, Basque, Castilian Spanish (excluding parts of Andalusia), Catalan, Galician and Northern Portuguese. A similar retracted sibilant form is also used in Dutch, Icelandic, some Southern dialects of Swedish, Finnish and Greek. Its sound is between [s] and [ʃ].
• The voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative [θ̱] or [θ͇], using the alveolar diacritic from the Extended IPA,^[1] is similar to the th in English thin. It occurs in Icelandic.
• The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [ɬ] sounds like a voiceless, strongly articulated version of English l (somewhat like what the English cluster hl would sound like) and is written as ll in Welsh.

The first three types are sibilants, meaning that they are made with the teeth closed and have a piercing, perceptually prominent sound.

Voiceless alveolar sibilant

Voiceless alveolar sibilant
s
IPA number	132
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	s
Unicode (hex)	U+0073
X-SAMPA	s
Kirshenbaum	s
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The voiceless alveolar sibilant is a common consonant sound in vocal languages. It is the sound in English words such as sea and pass, and is represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨s⟩. It has a characteristic high-pitched, highly perceptible hissing sound. For this reason, it is often used to get someone's attention, using a call often written as sssst! or psssst!.

The voiceless alveolar sibilant [s] is one of the most common sounds cross-linguistically. If a language has fricatives, it will most likely have [s].^[2] However, some languages have a related sibilant sound, such as [ʃ], but no [s]. In addition, sibilants are absent from Australian Aboriginal languages, in which fricatives are rare; even the few indigenous Australian languages that have developed fricatives do not have sibilants.

The voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant (commonly termed the voiceless apico-alveolar sibilant) is a fricative that is articulated with the tongue in a hollow shape, usually with the tip of the tongue (apex) against the alveolar ridge. It is a sibilant sound and is found most notably in a number of languages in a linguistic area covering northern and central Iberia. It is most well known from its occurrence in the Spanish of this area. In the Middle Ages, it occurred in a wider area, covering Romance languages spoken throughout France, Portugal, and Spain, as well as Old High German and Middle High German.

There is no single IPA symbol used for this sound. The symbol ⟨s̺⟩ is often used, with a diacritic indicating an apical pronunciation. However, that is potentially problematic in that not all alveolar retracted sibilants are apical (see below), and not all apical alveolar sibilants are retracted. The ad hoc non-IPA symbols ⟨ṣ⟩ and ⟨S⟩ are often used in the linguistic literature even when IPA symbols are used for other sounds, but ⟨ṣ⟩ is a common transcription of the retroflex sibilant [ʂ].

Often, to speakers of languages or dialects that do not have the sound, it is said to have a "whistling" quality, and to sound similar to palato-alveolar [ʃ]. For this reason, when borrowed into such languages or represented with non-Latin characters, it is often replaced with [ʃ]. This occurred, for example, in English borrowings from Old French (e.g. push from pousser, cash from caisse); in Polish borrowings from medieval German (e.g. kosztować from kosten, żur from sūr (contemporary sauer); and in representations of Mozarabic (an extinct medieval Romance language once spoken in southern Spain) in Arabic characters. The similarity between retracted [s̺] and [ʃ] has resulted in many exchanges in Spanish between the sounds, during the medieval period when Spanish had both phonemes. Examples are jabón (formerly xabón) "soap" from Latin sapō/sapōnem, jibia "cuttlefish" (formerly xibia) from Latin sēpia, and tijeras "scissors" (earlier tixeras < medieval tiseras) from Latin cīsōrias (with initial t- due to influence from tōnsor "shaver").

One of the clearest descriptions of this sound is from Obaid:^[3] "There is a Castilian s, which is a voiceless, concave, apicoalveolar fricative: The tip of the tongue turned upward forms a narrow opening against the alveoli of the upper incisors. It resembles a faint /ʃ/ and is found throughout much of the northern half of Spain".

Many dialects of Modern Greek have a very similar-sounding sibilant that is pronounced with a laminal articulation.^[4]

It occurs as the normal voiceless alveolar sibilant in Astur-Leonese, Castilian Spanish, Catalan, Galician, working-class Glaswegian English, northern European Portuguese, and some Occitan dialects. It also occurs in Basque and Mirandese, where it is opposed to a different voiceless alveolar sibilant, the more common [s]; the same distinction occurs in a few dialects of northeastern Portuguese. Outside this area, it also occurs in a few dialects of Latin American Spanish (e.g. Antioqueño, in Colombia), and in many dialects of Modern Greek (with a laminal articulation).

In medieval times, it occurred in a wider area, including the Romance languages spoken in most or all of France and Iberia (Old Spanish, Galician-Portuguese, Catalan, French, etc.), as well as in the Old and Middle High German of central and southern Germany.^[4] In all of these languages, the retracted "apico-alveolar" sibilant was opposed to a non-retracted sibilant much like English [s], and in many of them, both voiceless and voiced versions of both sounds occurred. In general, the retracted "apico-alveolar" variants were written ⟨s⟩ or ⟨ss⟩, while the non-retracted variants were written ⟨z⟩, ⟨c⟩ or ⟨ç⟩. In the Romance languages, the retracted sibilants derived from Latin /s/, /ss/ or /ns/, while the non-retracted sibilants derived from earlier affricates [t͡s] and [d͡z], which in turn derived from palatalized /k/ or /t/. The situation was similar in High German, where the retracted sibilants derived largely from Proto-Germanic /s/, while the non-retracted sibilants derived from instances of Proto-Germanic /t/ that were shifted by the High German sound shift. Minimal pairs were common in all languages. Examples in Middle High German, for example, were wizzen "to know" (Old English witan, cf. "to wit") vs. wissen "known" (Old English wissen), and weiz "white" (Old English wīt) vs. weis "way" (Old English wīs, cf. "-wise").

This distinction has since vanished from most of these languages:

• In most dialects of Spanish, the four alveolar sibilants have merged into the non-retracted [s].
• In French and most dialects of Portuguese, the four alveolar sibilants have merged into non-retracted [s] and [z], while in European Portuguese, most other Old World Portuguese variants and some recently European-influenced dialects of Brazil all instances of coda [s̺], voiced [z̺] before voiced consonants, were backed to [ɕ] [ʑ], while in most of Brazilian Portuguese this phenomenon is much rarer, being essentially absent in the dialects that conserved the most archaic Portuguese forms and/or had a greater indigenous and/or non-Portuguese European influence.
• In the remaining dialects of Portuguese, found in northern Portugal, they merged into the retracted [s̺] [z̺], or, as in Mirandese (which is, however, not a Portuguese dialect, but belongs to Asturian-Leonese), conserved the medieval distinction.
• In central and northern Spanish, the non-retracted [s] was fronted to [θ] after merging with non-retracted [z], while the retracted [s̺] remains.
• In German, most instances of [s̺] were fronted to [s], but some were backed to become [ʃ] (initially before a consonant; in many modern High German dialects, also non-initially before a consonant), postalveolar as in European and fluminense Portuguese.

Because of the widespread medieval distribution, it has been speculated that retracted [s̺] was the normal pronunciation in spoken Latin. However, it equally well could have been an areal feature inherited from the prehistoric languages of Western Europe, as evidenced by its occurrence in modern Basque.

Comparison with the Spanish apico-alveolar sibilant

The term "voiceless alveolar sibilant" is potentially ambiguous in that it can refer to at least two different sounds. Various languages of northern Iberia (e.g. Astur-Leonese, Catalan, Basque, Galician, Portuguese and Spanish) have a so-called "voiceless apico-alveolar sibilant" that lacks the strong hissing of the [s] described in this article but has a duller, more "grave" sound quality somewhat reminiscent of a voiceless retroflex sibilant. Basque, Mirandese and some Portuguese dialects in northeast Portugal (as well as medieval Spanish and Portuguese in general) have both types of sounds in the same language.

There is no general agreement about what actual feature distinguishes these sounds. Spanish phoneticians normally describe the difference as apical (for the northern Iberian sound) vs. laminal (for the more common sound), but Ladefoged and Maddieson^[5] claim that English /s/ can be pronounced apical, which is evidently not the same as the apical sibilant of Iberian Spanish and Basque. Also, Adams^[6] asserts that many dialects of Modern Greek have a laminal sibilant with a sound quality similar to the "apico-alveolar" sibilant of northern Iberia.

Some authors have instead suggested that the difference lies in tongue shape. Adams^[6] describes the northern Iberian sibilant as "retracted". Ladefoged and Maddieson^[5] appear to characterize the more common hissing variant as grooved, and some phoneticians (such as J. Catford) have characterized it as sulcal (which is more or less a synonym of "grooved"), but in both cases, there is some doubt about whether all and only the "hissing" sounds actually have a "grooved" or "sulcal" tongue shape.

Features

Features of the voiceless alveolar sibilant:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is generally produced by channeling air flow along a groove in the back of the tongue up to the place of articulation, at which point it is focused against the sharp edge of the nearly clenched teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.
• There are at least three specific variants of [s]:
  • Dentalized laminal alveolar (commonly called "dental"), which means it is articulated with the tongue blade very close to the upper front teeth, with the tongue tip resting behind lower front teeth. The hissing effect in this variety of [s] is very strong.^[7]
  • Non-retracted 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. According to Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) about half of English speakers use a non-retracted apical articulation.
  • Retracted alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue slightly behind the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal. Acoustically, it is close to laminal [ʂ] or (to a lesser extent) [ʃ].

• 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

Dentalized laminal alveolar

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Arabic	Gulf[8]	مسجد	[mɐˈs̪iːd̪]	'mosque'
Armenian	Eastern[9]	սար	[s̪ɑɾ]	'mountain'
Azerbaijani[10]		su	[s̪u]	'water'
Basque[11]		gauza	[ɡäus̪ä]	'thing'	Contrasts with an apical sibilant.[11] See Basque phonology
Belarusian[12]		стагоддзе	[s̪t̪äˈɣod̪d̪͡z̪ʲe]	'century'	Contrasts with palatalized form. See Belarusian phonology
Bulgarian[13]		всеки	[ˈvs̪ɛki]	'everyone'	Contrasts with palatalized form
Chinese	Mandarin[14][15]	三 sān	[s̪a̋n]	'three'	See Mandarin phonology
Czech[16]		svět	[s̪vjɛt̪]	'world'	See Czech phonology
English	Auckland[17]	sand	[s̪ɛnˑd̥]	'sand'	See English phonology
	Multicultural London[18]		[s̪anˑd̥]
French[19][20][21]		façade	[fäs̪äd̪]	'front'	See French phonology
Hungarian[22]		sziget	[ˈs̪iɡɛt̪]	'island'	See Hungarian phonology
Kashubian[23]
Kazakh[24]		сом	[s̪u̯ʊm]	'pure'
Kyrgyz[25]		сабиз	[s̪äˈbis̪]	'carrot'
Latvian[26]		sens	[s̪en̪s̪]	'ancient'	See Latvian phonology
Macedonian[27]		скока	[ˈs̪kɔkä]	'jump'	See Macedonian phonology
Mirandese					Contrasts seven sibilants altogether, preserving medieval Ibero-Romance contrasts.
Polish[7][28]		sum	[s̪um]	'catfish'	See Polish phonology
Romanian[29]		surd	[s̪ur̪d̪]	'deaf'	See Romanian phonology
Russian[30]		волосы	[ˈvo̞ɫ̪əs̪ɨ̞]	'hair'	Contrasts with palatalized form. See Russian phonology
Scottish Gaelic[31]		Slàinte	[ˈs̪ɫ̪äːn̪t̪ʰʲə]	'cheers'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian[32][33]		сам sam	[s̪ȃ̠m]	'alone'	See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Slovene[34]		svet	[s̪ʋéːt̪]	'world'	See Slovene phonology
Spanish	European[35]	estar	[e̞s̪ˈt̪är]	'to be'	Allophone of /s/ before dental consonants.[35] See Spanish phonology
Swedish[36]	Central Standard[37][38]	säte	[ˈs̪ɛːt̪e]	'seat'	Retracted in some southern dialects.[39] See Swedish phonology
Toda[40][41]		[kɔs̪]		'money'
Turkish[19][42]		su	[s̪u]	'water'	See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian[43]		село	[s̪ɛˈɫ̪ɔ]	'village'	See Ukrainian phonology
Upper Sorbian[44]		sowa	[ˈs̪ovä]	'owl'	See Upper Sorbian phonology
Uzbek[45]		soat	[ˈs̪o̞æt̪]	'hour'
Vietnamese	Hanoi[46]	xa	[s̪äː]	'far'	See Vietnamese phonology

Non-retracted alveolar

Retracted alveolar

Variable

Voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative

The voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative (also known as a "slit" fricative) is a consonantal sound. As the International Phonetic Alphabet does not have separate symbols for the alveolar consonants (the same symbol is used for all coronal places of articulation that are not palatalized), this sound is usually transcribed ⟨θ̠⟩, occasionally ⟨θ͇⟩ (retracted or alveolarized [θ], respectively), ⟨ɹ̝̊⟩ (constricted voiceless [ɹ]), or ⟨t̞⟩ (lowered [t]).

Features

• 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. However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.

• 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 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

• Voiceless corono-dentoalveolar sibilant
• Tongue shape
• Apical consonant
• Laminal consonant
• Index of phonetics articles

Notes

References