Homorganic consonants
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1. Exo-labial, 2. Endo-labial, 3. Dental, 4. Alveolar, 5. Post-alveolar, 6. Pre-palatal, 7. Palatal, 8. Velar, 9. Uvular, 10. Pharyngeal, 11. Glottal, 12. Epiglottal, 13. Radical, 14. Postero-dorsal, 15. Antero-dorsal, 16. Laminal, 17. Apical, 18. Sub-apical
Homorganic consonants is a phonetics term for similar sounds which are articulated in the same position or place of articulation in the mouth.
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[edit] Articulatory position
Descriptive phonetic classification relies on the relationships between a number of technical terms which describe the way sounds are made; and one of the relevant elements involves that place at which a specific sound is formed and voiced.[1] In articulatory phonetics, the specific "place of articulation" or "point of articulation" of a consonant is that point of contact, where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active (moving) articulator (typically some part of the tongue) and a passive (stationary) articulator (typically some part of the roof of the mouth). Along with the manner of articulation and phonation, this gives the consonant its distinctive sound.
[edit] Similar articulatory position
Consonants which have similar, near-equivalent or the same place of articulation, such as the alveolar sounds -- n, t, d, s, z, l -- in English, are said to be homorganic.
[edit] Homorganic nasal rule
A homorganic nasal rule is a case where the point of articulation of the initial sound is assimilated by the last sound in a prefix. An example of this rule is found in Yoruba language, where ba, "hide", becomes mba, "is hiding", while sun, "sleep", becomes nsun, "is sleeping".
[edit] Consonant clustering
Two or more consonant sounds may appear sequentially linked or clustered as either identical consonants or homorganic consonants which differ slightly in the manner of articulation -- as when the first consonant is a fricative and the second is a plosive.[2]
In some languages a syllable-initial homorganic sequence of a stop and a nasal is quite uncontroversially treated as a sequence of two separate segments; and the separate status of the stop and the nasal is quite clear. In Russian, the stop + nasal sequences are just one of the possible types amongst many different syllable-initial consonant sequences which occur.[3] In English, nasal + stop sequences within a morpheme must be homorganic.[4]
[edit] Consonant length
In languages as diverse as Arabic and Icelandic, there is a phonological contrast between long and short consonants,[5] which are distinguishable from consonant clusters. In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant.
Consonant length is distinctive in some languages. In Japanese, for example, 来た(kita) means 'came; arrived', while 切った(kitta) means 'cut; sliced'. The romanization or transliteration of the sound of each Japanese word produces the misleading impression of a doubled-consonant.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Laver, John. (2003). "Linguistic Phonetics," in The Handbook of Linguistics, pp. 164-178.
- ^ Ravid, Dorit diskin et al. (2005). Perspectives on Language and Language Development, p. 55.
- ^ Ladefoged, Peter et al. (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages, p. 128.
- ^ Ladefoged, p. 119.
- ^ Ladefoged, p. 92.
[edit] References
- Aronoff, Mark and Janie Rees-Miller. (2003). The Handbook of Linguistics. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing. 10-ISBN 1-405-10252-7; 13-ISBN 978-1-405-10252-0; OCLC 185384910
- Ladefoged, Peter and Ian Maddieson. (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 10-ISBN 0-631-19815-6; 13-ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4; OCLC 31867443
- Ravid, Dorit Diskin, Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot and Ruth Aronson Berman. (2005). Perspectives on Language and Language Development: Essays in Honor of Ruth A. Berman. Dordrecht: Springer (Kulwer Academic). 10-ISBN 1-402-07903-6: 13-ISBN 978-1-402-07903-0; OCLC 55220212
- Ladefoged, Peter; Ian Maddieson (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.
