Voiceless uvular fricative trill

☆ Save On Wikipedia ↗
Voiceless uvular trill
ʀ̥
IPA number123 402A
Audio sample
Encoding
X-SAMPAR\_0

A voiceless uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is less common than its voiced counterpart. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʀ̥⟩, a small capital version of the Latin letter r with a ring diacritic indicating voicelessness.

Features

Features of a voiceless uvular trill:

  • Its manner of articulation is trill, which means it is produced by directing air over an articulator so that it vibrates.
  • 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 that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
  • It is a median consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream down the midline of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
  • Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Baïnounk Gubëeher Some speakers[1] [ələːʀ̥][2] 'to go' Word-final allophone of /ɾ/.
French Belgian[3] triste [t̪ʀ̥is̪t̪œ] 'sad' Allophone of /ʁ/ after voiceless consonants; can be a fricative [χ] instead.[3] See French phonology
German Standard[4] treten [ˈtʀ̥eːtn̩] 'to step' Possible allophone of /r/ after voiceless consonants for speakers that realize /r/ as a uvular trill [ʀ].[4] See Standard German phonology
Chemnitz dialect[5] Rock [ʀ̥ɔkʰ] 'skirt' In free variation with [ʁ̞], [ʁ], [χ] and [q]. Does not occur in the coda.[5]
Limburgish Hasselt dialect[6] geer [ɣeːʀ̥] 'odour' Possible word-final allophone of /ʀ/; may be alveolar [r̥] instead.[7] See Hasselt dialect phonology
Spanish Ponce dialect[8] perro [ˈpe̞ʀ̥o̞] 'dog' This and [χ] are the primary realizations of /r/ in this dialect.[8] See Spanish phonology
Central and northern Spain[9] ojo [ˈo̞ʀ̥o̞] 'eye' This and [χ] are the primary realizations of /x/ in this dialect.[9]

Fricative trill

Voiceless uvular fricative trill
ʀ̝̊
Audio sample

Many languages claimed to have a voiceless uvular fricative may actually have a voiceless uvular fricative trill (a simultaneous [χ] and [ʀ̥]). Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) note that there is "a complication in the case of uvular fricatives in that the shape of the vocal tract may be such that the uvula vibrates."

Although they are not normally differentiated in studies, languages in which they have been (Hebrew, Wolof, as well as the northern and central varieties of European Spanish) have been found to specifically possess the fricative trill.[10][11][12][13] The fricative-trill can be transcribed as ⟨ʀ̝̊⟩ (a devoiced and raised uvular trill) in IPA. It is found as either the fortis counterpart of /ɣ/ (which itself is voiceless at least in Northern Standard Dutch: [x]) or the sole dorsal fricative in Northern SD and regional dialects and languages of the Netherlands (Dutch Low Saxon and West Frisian) spoken above the rivers Rhine, Meuse and Waal (sometimes termed the Rotterdam–Nijmegen Line). A plain fricative that is articulated slightly further front, as either medio-velar or post-palatal is typical of dialects spoken south of the rivers (mainly Brabantian and Limburgish but excluding Ripuarian and the dialect of Bergen op Zoom), including Belgian SD. In those dialects, the voiceless uvular fricative trill is one of the possible realizations of the phoneme /r/.[14][15][16][17][18][19][20] See Hard and soft G in Dutch for more details.

The frication in the fricative trill variant sometimes occurs at the middle or the back of the soft palate (termed velar or mediovelar and post-velar, respectively), rather than the uvula itself. This is the case in Northern Standard Dutch as well as some varieties of Arabic, Limburgish and Madrid Spanish. It may thus be appropriate to call those variants voiceless (post)velar-uvular fricative trill as the trill component is always uvular (velar trills are not physically possible). The corresponding IPA symbol is ⟨ʀ̝̊˖⟩ (a devoiced, raised and advanced uvular trill, where the "advanced" diacritic applies only to the fricative portion of the sound). Thus, in cases where a dialectal variation between voiceless uvular and velar fricatives is claimed the main difference between the two may be the trilling of the uvula as frication can be velar in both cases - compare Northern Dutch acht [ɑʀ̝̊˖t] 'eight' (with a postvelar-uvular fricative trill) with Southern Dutch [ɑxt] or [ax̟t], which features a non-trilled fricative articulated at the middle or front of the soft palate.[12][13][14][18][19][21]

LanguageWordIPAMeaningNotes
Afrikaans[22][23] goed [ʀ̝̊ut] 'good' Varies between a fricative and a fricative trill when word-initial.[22] See Afrikaans phonology.
Arabic[24] خضراء ḵaḍrāʾ [ʀ̝̊adˤraːʔ] 'green' (f.) Fricative trill with velar frication.[24] May be transcribed in IPA with ⟨x⟩. See Arabic phonology
Dutch Standard Northern[14][15] acht [ɑʀ̝̊˖t] 'eight' Fricative trill with post-velar frication.[14] May be transcribed in IPA with ⟨x⟩. See Dutch phonology and Hard and soft G in Dutch
Belgian[16][17] brood [bʀ̝̊oːt] 'bread' Voiced when following a vowel.[25] Realization of /r/ varies considerably among dialects. See Dutch phonology
English Scouse[26] clock [kl̥ɒʀ̝̊] 'clock' Possible word-final realization of /k/; varies between a fricative and a fricative trill.[26]
neck [nɛʀ̝̊] 'neck'
Hebrew[10] מֶלֶךְ / mélekh [ˈme̞le̞ʀ̝̊] 'king' Usually a fricative trill.[10] See Modern Hebrew phonology.
Limburgish Some dialects[18][19][20] waor [β̞ɒ̝ːʀ̝̊] 'was' Allophone of /r/ that has been variously described as occurring in the syllable coda[18][19] and word-final.[20] May be only partially devoiced; frication may be uvular or post-velar.[18][19] The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect. See Maastrichtian dialect phonology and Hard and soft G in Dutch
Low German Dutch Low Saxon[14][15] acht [ɑʀ̝̊˖t] 'eight' Fricative trill with post-velar frication;[14] voiceless counterpart of /ɣ/. May be transcribed in IPA with ⟨x⟩. See Hard and soft G in Dutch
Spanish European[12][13] ojo [ˈo̞ʀ̝̊o̞] 'eye' Fricative trill; frication is velar in Madrid. Occurs in northern and central varieties.[12][13] Most often, it is transcribed with ⟨x⟩ in IPA. See Spanish phonology.
Upper Sorbian[27] brach [bʁ̞äʀ̝̊] 'fault' Fricative trill.[27]
West Frisian[14][15] berch [bɛrʀ̝̊˖] 'mountain' Fricative trill with post-velar frication;[14] voiceless counterpart of /ɣ/. Never occurs in word-initial positions. May be transcribed in IPA with ⟨x⟩. See West Frisian phonology
Wolof[11] ñax [ɲaʀ̝̊] 'grass' Fricative trill.[11]

See also

Notes

  1. Cobbinah (2013), p. 166.
  2. Cobbinah (2013), p. 169.
  3. Demolin (2001), pp. 65, 67–68, 70–71.
  4. Krech et al. (2009), p. 86.
  5. Khan & Weise (2013), p. 235.
  6. Peters (2006).
  7. While Peters (2006) does not state that explicitly, he uses the symbol ⟨r̥⟩ for many instances of the word-final /r/.
  8. "The Spanish of Ponce, Puerto Rico: A phonetic, phonological, and intonational analysis". October 2010. Archived from the original on 2014-05-24. Retrieved 2023-09-07.
  9. "About Us | Voices of the Hispanic World". dialectos.osu.edu. Retrieved 2024-05-15.
  10. Laufer (1999), p. 98.
  11. Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996), p. 167.
  12. "Castilian Spanish - Madrid by Klaus Kohler".
  13. Lyons (1981), p. 76.
  14. Collins & Mees (2003:191). Goeman & Van de Velde (2001) have also found that frication is much more commonly in the velar region in dialects and language varieties with "hard G", though they do not distinguish between trilled and non-trilled fricatives in their study.
  15. Gussenhoven (1999), p. 74.
  16. Tops (2009), pp. 25, 30–32, 63, 80–88, 97–100, 105, 118, 124–127, 134–135, 137–138, 140–141.
  17. Verhoeven (1994:?), cited in Tops (2009:22, 83)
  18. Heijmans & Gussenhoven (1998), p. 108.
  19. Gussenhoven & Aarts (1999), p. 156.
  20. Verhoeven (2007), p. 220.
  21. Thelwall & Sa'Addedin (1999), pp. 51, 53.
  22. "John Wells's phonetic blog: velar or uvular?". 5 December 2011. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  23. Bowerman (2004:939): "White South African English is one of very few varieties to have a velar fricative phoneme /x/ (see Lass (2002:120)), but this is only in words borrowed from Afrikaans (...) and Khoisan (...). Many speakers use the Afrikaans uvular fricative [χ] rather than the velar."
  24. Thelwall & Sa'Addedin (1999), p. 53.
  25. Tops (2009), p. 83.
  26. Wells (1982), pp. 372–373.
  27. Howson (2017), p. 362.

References