Voiced velar approximant

The voiced velar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is Template:Angbr IPA, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is M\.

The consonant is absent in English, but may be approximated by making Template:IPAblink but with the tongue body lowered or Template:IPAblink but with the lips apart. The voiced velar approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic counterpart of the close back unrounded vowel . Template:Angbr IPA and Template:Angbr IPA with the non-syllabic diacritic are used in different transcription systems to represent the same sound.

In some languages, such as Spanish, the voiced velar approximant is an allophone of – see below.

The symbol for the velar approximant originates from Template:Angbr IPA, but with a vertical line. Compare Template:Angbr IPA and Template:Angbr IPA for the labio-palatal approximant.

Features

Features of the voiced velar approximant:

Template:Approximant The most common type of this approximant is glide or semivowel. The term glide emphasizes the characteristic of movement (or 'glide') of from the Template:IPAblink vowel position to a following vowel position. The term semivowel emphasizes that, although the sound is vocalic in nature, it is not 'syllabic' (it does not form the nucleus of a syllable). For a description of the approximant consonant variant used e.g. in Spanish, see below. Template:Velar Template:Voiced Template:Oral Template:Central articulation Template:Pulmonic

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
AragoneseTemplate:Sfnp				'oak tree'	Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of .
Astur-Leonese	Asturian	Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler			Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of .
	Extremaduran	Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler
	Leonese	Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler
	Mirandese	Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler
CatalanTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp				'water'	Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of .Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp See Catalan phonology
Cherokee		ᏩᏥ		'watch'	Found only in the Western dialect. Its equivalent in other dialects is [w]. Also represented by Ꮺ, Ꮻ, Ꮼ, Ꮽ, and Ꮾ
Danish	Older speakersTemplate:Sfnp			'tallow'	Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding. Still used by some older speakers in high register, much more commonly than a fricative Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp Depending on the environment, it corresponds to or Template:IPAblink in young speakers of contemporary Standard Danish.Template:Sfnp See Danish phonology
Dutch	Western East FlemishTemplate:Sfnp				Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding. Corresponds to a fricative Template:IPAblink in other dialects.Template:Sfnp
French	BelgianTemplate:Sfnp			'macaw'	Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding. Intervocalic, word-internal allophone of for some speakers.Template:Sfnp See French phonology
GalicianTemplate:Sfnp				'water'	Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of .Template:Sfnp See Galician phonology
Greek	CypriotTemplate:Sfnp			'shop'	Allophone of .
Guarani				'near, close to'	Contrasts with
	Ñandewa Paulista-ParanaenseTemplate:Sfnp			'I cut'	Contrasts with Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp
Hiw		ter̄og		'peace'	Contrasts with and with .Template:Sfnp
IbibioTemplate:Sfnp		ufokọ		Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	Intervocalic allophone of ; may be a uvular tap Template:IPAblink instead.Template:Sfnp
Icelandic				'saga'	Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding. See Icelandic phonology
Irish				'nine'	Occurs only between broad consonants and front vowels. See Irish phonology
Korean		/		'doctor'	Occurs only before . See Korean phonology
Mwotlap		haghag		'sit'	Contrasts with .Template:Sfnp
ShipiboTemplate:Sfnp				Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	Unspecified for rounding; varies between an approximant and a fricative. Allophone of in certain high-frequency morphemes.Template:Sfnp
SpanishTemplate:Sfnp			{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "Es_pagar.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'to pay'	Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of .Template:Sfnp See Spanish phonology
Swedish	Central StandardTemplate:Sfnp			'agronomist'	Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of in casual speech. See Swedish phonology
Tagalog		igriega		'y (letter)'	Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; intervocalic allophone of . See Tagalog phonology
Tiwi				'we (inclusive)'
Vietnamese	Southern	gà		'chicken'	Typical realization of in other dialects. Variant is in complementary distribution before open vowels.

Pre-velar

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
SpanishTemplate:Sfnp			{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "Es-seguir.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'to follow'	Approximant consonant. Lenited allophone of before front vowels;Template:Sfnp typically transcribed in IPA with Template:Angbr IPA. See Spanish phonology
Turkish	Standard prescriptiveTemplate:Sfnp			'marriage'	Either post-palatal or palatal; phonetic realization of (also transcribed as ) before front vowels.Template:Sfnp See Turkish phonology

Voiced velar bunched approximant

Template:Infobox IPA/core1 Some languages have a velar approximant that is produced with the body of the tongue bunched up at the velum and simultaneous pharyngealization. This gives rise to a type of retroflex resonance resembling Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp The extension to the IPA recommends the use of the "centralized" diacritic combined with the IPA sign for the English alveolar approximant (as in Template:Angbr IPA) to distinguish the bunched realization from the prototypical apical Template:IPAblink, which may be specified as Template:Angbr IPA. Typically, the diacritic is omitted, so that the sound is transcribed simply with Template:Angbr IPA or Template:Angbr IPA (in broader transcriptions: Template:Angbr IPA), as if it were a coronal consonant.

In Dutch, this type of r is called 'Gooi r'. It is named after het Gooi, a region of the Netherlands where Hilversum (the main centre for television and radio broadcasting) is located.

Features

Features of the voiced velar bunched approximant:

Template:Approximant The body of the tongue is bunched up at the velum, rather than just approaching it as it is the case with the prototypical velar approximant. Template:Velar Template:Voiced Template:Oral Template:Central articulation Template:Pulmonic

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Dutch	Randstad varietiesTemplate:Sfnp			'but'	Pre-velar. Common allophone of in the syllable coda, where it contrasts with Template:IPAblink. The bunching and pharyngealization may be lost in connected speech, resulting in a semivowel such as Template:IPAblink or .Template:Sfnp See Dutch phonology
	Standard NorthernTemplate:Sfnp				Pre-velar. Common allophone of in the syllable coda, where it contrasts with Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp See Dutch phonology
English	AmericanTemplate:Sfnp			'red'	Possible realization of ; auditorily indistinguishable from apical .Template:Sfnp See Pronunciation of English /r/
	Received PronunciationTemplate:Sfnp			'curious'	Possible allophone of before front vowels; auditorily indistinguishable from apical .Template:Sfnp See Pronunciation of English /r/

Relation with and

Some languages have a voiced velar approximant that is unspecified for rounding, and therefore cannot be considered the semivocalic equivalent of either or its rounded counterpart Template:IPAblink. Examples of such languages are Catalan, Galician and Spanish, in which the approximant consonant (not semivowel) unspecified for rounding appears as an allophone of .Template:Sfnp

Eugenio Martínez Celdrán describes the voiced velar approximant consonant as follows:Template:Sfnp

As for the symbol Template:Angbr IPA, it is quite evidently inappropriate for representing the Spanish voiced velar approximant consonant. Many authors have pointed out the fact that is not rounded; for example, Pullum & Ladusaw (1986:98) state that 'the sound in question can be described as a semi-vowel (glide) with the properties "high", "back", and "unrounded"'. They even establish an interesting parallelism: 'the sound can be regarded as an unrounded Template:IPAblink'. It is evident, then, that Template:Angbr IPA is not an adequate symbol for Spanish. First of all, because it has never been taken into consideration that there is a diphthong in words like 'pay', 'lazy', 'lay', etc., and, secondly, because this sound is rounded when it precedes rounded vowels. Besides, it would be utterly wrong to transcribe the word 'juice' with Template:Angbr IPA *, because the pronunciation of that consonant between two rounded vowels is completely rounded whereas is not. [...]

The symbol I have always proposed is Template:Angbr IPA, the correlate to the other central approximants in Spanish, (Martínez Celdrán 1991, 1996:47). This coincides with Ball & Rahilly (1999:90), whose example for the three approximants is the Spanish word 'lawyer'[...]. Ball & Rahilly too criticise in a footnote the confusion between these symbols: 'The difference between an approximant version of the voiced velar fricative , and the velar semi-vowel is that the latter requires spread lips, and must have a slightly more open articulatory channel so that it becomes Template:IPAblink if prolonged' (p. 189, fn. 1).

There is a parallel problem with transcribing the palatal approximant.

The symbol Template:Angbr IPA may not display properly in all browsers. In that case, Template:Angbr IPA should be substituted. In broader transcriptions, the lowering diacritic may be omitted altogether, so that the symbol is rendered Template:Angbr IPA, i.e. as if it represented the corresponding fricative.

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

References

• .
• .

External links

• Template:Phoible