Voiced postalveolar affricate
The
voiced palato-alveolar fricative or
domed postalveolar affricate is a type of
consonantal sound, used in some
spoken languages. The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent
X-SAMPA symbol is
[dZ]. Alternatives commonly used in linguistic works, particularly in older or American literature, are . It is familiar to English speakers as the 'j' sound in jump.
Features of the voiced postalveolar affricate:
* Its
manner of articulation is
sibilant affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then directing it through a groove in the tongue and over the sharp edge of the teeth, causing high-frequency
turbulence.
* Its
place of articulation is
palato-alveolar, that is, domed (partially
palatalized)
postalveolar, which means it is articulated with the front of the
tongue behind the
alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue bunched up ("domed") at the
palate.
* Its
phonation type is voiced, which means it is produced while vibrating the vocal cords.
* It is an
oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
* It is a
central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
* The
airstream mechanism is
pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the
lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the
glottis or the mouth.
The voiced postalveolar affricate occurs in
English, and it is the sound denoted by the letter 'g' in
giraffe and the letter 'j' in
jump.
The
xh digraph is used to write this sound.
In Croatian it is a phoneme represented by the letter
dž which is a "double" letter along with
lj and
nj.
In Czech, this sound is represented by
digraph dž. It occurs almost in words of foreign origin (e. g.
džem , jam). It is also a voiced realisation of
č before voiced
consonants, e. g.
léčba , treatment.
In Faroese, this sound is represented by
dj, or by
g + e, i, y, or
ey. However, some scholars believe this sound to be a
voiced palatal plosive, but this might just be dialectically dependant.
As J is already represents a
voiced postalveolar fricative in French, a voiced postalveolar affricate in French is represented by
dj as in
Djibouti, although the sound does not appear in native French words.
In Irish and Scottish Gaelic (most notably in Scottish Gaelic), a slender
d (slender meaning placed beside an
e or an
i) takes on this sound;
Dia (Irish and Scots Gaelic) "God",
Oíche Mhic Dé (Irish) "Night of God's Son",
deas (Scots Gaelic) "ready".
In Hungarian, this sound is represented by the only
trigraph of the language,
dzs.
In Italian, this sound is represented by
g before
i or
e, such as in
giallo (//), yellow, or in
gemma (//), gem.
In
Brazilian Portuguese, the phoneme
has the allophone before
(spelled as
i or unstressed
e). A similar change converts
into in the same environment.
*
List of phonetics topics
