Alveolo-palatal consonant

File:Alveolopalatal fricative.svg

Sagittal section of alveolo-palatal fricative

In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (alveolopalatal, alveo-palatal or alveopalatalTemplate:Efn) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal articulation. In the official IPA chart, alveolo-palatals would appear between the retroflex and palatal consonants but for "lack of space". Ladefoged and Maddieson characterize the alveolo-palatals as palatalized postalveolars (and thus as palato-alveolars), articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate, whereas Esling describes them as advanced palatals (pre-palatals), the furthest front of the dorsal consonants, articulated with the body of the tongue approaching the alveolar ridge. These descriptions are essentially equivalent, since the contact includes both the blade and body (but not the tip) of the tongue (see schematic at right). They are front enough that the fricatives and affricates are sibilants, the only sibilants among the dorsal consonants.

According to Daniel Recasens, alveolo-palatal consonants are realized through the formation of a simultaneous closure or constriction at the alveolar and palatal zones with a primary articulator which encompasses the blade and the tongue dorsum. Their place of articulation may include the postalveolar zone and the prepalate, but also a larger contact area extending towards the front alveolar zone and the back palate surface. The tongue tip is bent downwards and the tongue dorsum is raised and fronted during the production of these consonants.

Sibilants

The alveolo-palatal sibilants are often used in varieties of Chinese such as Mandarin, Hakka, and Wu, as well as other East Asian languages such as Japanese and Korean, Tibeto-Burman such as Tibetan and Burmese as well as Tai languages such as Thai, Lao, Shan and Zhuang. Alveolo-palatal sibilants are also a feature of many Slavic languages, such as Polish, Russian, and Serbo-Croatian, and of Northwest Caucasian languages, such as Abkhaz and Ubykh. The alveolo-palatal consonants included in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

Historical IPA	Current IPA	Description	Example
			Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
		Voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant	Mandarin	小 (xiǎo)		small
		Voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant	Polish	zioło		herb
		Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate	Serbo-Croatian	kuća / кућа		house
		Voiced alveolo-palatal affricate	Japanese	地震 (jishin)		earthquake

The letters Template:Angbr IPA and Template:Angbr IPA are essentially equivalent to Template:Angbr IPA and Template:Angbr IPA. They are the sibilant homologues of the pre-palatal fricatives and .

Stops, nasals, and liquids

Symbols for alveolo-palatal stops Template:UnicharTemplate:Unichar(), nasals Template:Unichar() and liquids Template:Unichar() are sometimes used in sinological circles (a circumflex accent is also sometimes seen), but they are not recognized by the IPA.

In standard IPA, they can be transcribed Template:Angbr IPA or Template:Angbr IPA. An alternative transcription for the voiced alveolo-palatal stop and nasal is Template:Angbr IPA, but it is used only when Template:Angbr IPA cannot be displayed properly.

For example, the Polish nasal represented with the letter ń is a palatalized laminal alveolar nasal and thus often described as alveolo-palatal rather than palatal. The "palatal" consonants of Indigenous Australian languages are also often closer to alveolo-palatal in their articulation.

Para-IPA	IPA	Description	Example
			Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
		Voiceless alveolo-palatal stop	Korean			dust
		Voiced alveolo-palatal stop	Korean			firefly
		Voiced alveolo-palatal nasal	Nuosu	ꑌ nyi		sit
		Voiceless alveolo-palatal nasal	Lower Xumi			clean
		Alveolo-palatal lateral	Catalan	ull		eye
		Alveolo-palatal approximant	Huastec

Contrasting with palatovelar consonants

Template:See In Migueleño Chiquitano, phoneme /ȶ/ contrasts with phoneme /c̠/; in the syllabic coda (or intervowel) position in conservative Irish, laminal alveolo-palatal phoneme /ṉʲ/ (termed fortis slender coronal nasal, orthographic example inn) contrasts with both dorsal palatal phoneme /ɲ/ (termed slender dorsal nasal, orthographic example ing or -nc-) and apical palatalized alveolar phoneme /nʲ/ (termed lenis slender coronal nasal, orthographic example in); while general Irish other than Munster Irish contrasts alveolo-palatal nasal only with palatal nasal. In both cases, the palatal consonants work as the palatalization of velar consonants while alveolo-palatal consonants work as the palatalization of alveolar consonants.

In some spoken Chinese varieties, such as the Template:Ill in Template:Ill, contrast the alveolo-palatal nasal with the palato-velar nasal. For example, the following contrasting pairs can be found in Luchuan Ngai.

Luchuan Ngai contrasting pairs

EMC	Character	Pronunciation	Tone
newH	尿	niau	去
nraewX	撓		阳平
nyew	饒	ȵiau	阳平
ngewH	澆	ɲ̠iau	上
nrjem	黏	niam	阴平
nyemX	染	ȵiam	上
ngjaem	嚴	ɲ̠iam	阳平
nyin	人	ȵin	阳平
	仁	ɲ̠in

Although a number of spoken Chinese varieties, such as standard Mandarin, also contrast EMC alveolo-palatal nasal with velar nasal of class III (palatalizing medial), most don't contrast them in a way that alveolo-palatal differs from palatal. For example, in Template:Ill Hakka, alveolo-palatal nasal marginally contrasts with velar nasal under close front medials, but there is little sign of palatal contrasts.

M pairs

EMC	Character	Pronunciation	Tone
nrjep	聶	niap	阳
	鑷	ȵiap
nyip	入	ȵap
net	捏	ŋiap

Thus most frequently, the Sinologist use of ȵ instead of ɲ is not to indicate a contrast, but to emphasize its primary allophone not to be the Turkish [ɲ], or to indicate its coronal origin or that it has evolved with other dorsal consonants which have become alveolopalatals, where ɲ is reserved for postpalatals evolved from dorsal consonants. However, since ȵ has also been unfortunately used by some for Meixian Hakka, the distinction of usage has become vague. ȶ, on the other hand, has retained its accurate usage representing phonemes in certain spoken Chinese in Hengyang and has never been applied on Hakka or on certain Mandarin in or near Shandong.

Further reading

• Template:SOWL