This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007)

Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of [f]; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German [x], the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh [ɬ], appearing twice in the name Llanelli. This turbulent airflow is called frication. A particular subset of fricatives are the sibilants. When forming a sibilant, one still is forcing air through a narrow channel, but in addition the tongue is curled lengthwise to direct the air over the edge of the teeth. English [s], [z], [ʃ], and [ʒ] are examples of this.

Two other terms are spirant and strident, but their usage is less standardized. The former can be used synonymously with "fricative", or (as in e.g. Uralic linguistics) to refer to non-sibilant fricatives only. The latter can be used synonymously with "sibilant", but some authors include also labiodental and/or uvular fricatives in the class.

Sibilant fricatives [edit]

• [s] voiceless coronal sibilant, as in English sip
• [z] voiced coronal sibilant, as in English zip
• [sʼ] ejective coronal sibilant
• [s̪] voiceless dental sibilant
• [z̪] voiced dental sibilant
• [s̺] voiceless apical sibilant
• [z̺] voiced apical sibilant
• [s̠] voiceless postalveolar sibilant (laminal)
• [z̠] voiced postalveolar sibilant (laminal)
• [ʃ] voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant (domed, partially palatalized), as in English ship
• [ʒ] voiced palato-alveolar sibilant (domed, partially palatalized), as the s in English vision
• [ɕ] voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant (laminal, palatalized)
• [ʑ] voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant (laminal, palatalized)
• [ʂ] voiceless retroflex sibilant (apical or subapical)
• [ʐ] voiced retroflex sibilant (apical or subapical)

All sibilants are coronal, but may be dental, alveolar, postalveolar, or palatal (retroflex) within that range. However, at the postalveolar place of articulation, the tongue may take several shapes: domed, laminal, or apical, and each of these is given a separate symbol and a separate name. Prototypical retroflexes are subapical and palatal, but they are usually written with the same symbol as the apical postalveolars. The alveolars and dentals may also be either apical or laminal, but this difference is indicated with diacritics rather than with separate symbols.

Central non-sibilant fricatives [edit]

• [ɸ] voiceless bilabial fricative
• [β] voiced bilabial fricative
• [f] voiceless labiodental fricative, as in English fine
• [v] voiced labiodental fricative, as in English vine
• [θ̼] voiceless linguolabial fricative
• [ð̼] voiced linguolabial fricative
• [θ], [θ̟] voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative, as in English thing
• [ð], [ð̟] voiced dental non-sibilant fricative, as in English that
• [θ̠], [ɹ̝̊] voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative
• [ð̠], [ɹ̝] voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative
• [r̝̊] voiceless trilled fricative
• [r̝] voiced trilled fricative
• [ç] voiceless palatal fricative
• [ʝ] voiced palatal fricative
• [x] voiceless velar fricative
• [ɣ] voiced velar fricative
• [ɧ] voiceless palatal-velar fricative (articulation disputed)
• [χ] voiceless uvular fricative
• [ħ] voiceless pharyngeal fricative
• [ʜ] voiceless epiglottal fricative

Lateral fricatives [edit]

• [ɬ] voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
• [ɮ] voiced alveolar lateral fricative
• [ɬ̥˔] or [ɬ̢] voiceless retroflex lateral fricative (also written [])
• [ʎ̥˔] or [ʎ̝̊] voiceless palatal lateral fricative (also [])
• [ʟ̝̊] voiceless velar lateral fricative (also [])
• [ʟ̝] voiced velar lateral fricative

The lateral fricative occurs as the ll of Welsh, as in Lloyd, Llewelyn, and the town of Machynlleth ([maˈxənɬɛθ]), as the unvoiced 'hl' and voiced 'dl' or 'dhl' in the several languages of Southern Africa (such as Xhosa and Zulu), and in Mongolian.

Symbols used for both fricatives and approximants [edit]

• [ʁ] voiced uvular fricative
• [ʕ] voiced pharyngeal fricative
• [ʢ] voiced epiglottal fricative

No language distinguishes voiced fricatives from approximants at these places, so the same symbol is used for both. For the pharyngeals and epiglottals, approximants are more numerous than fricatives. A fricative realization may be specified by adding the uptack to the letters, [ʁ̝, ʕ̝, ʢ̝]. Likewise, the downtack may be added to specify an approximant realization, [ʁ̞, ʕ̞, ʢ̞].

(The bilabial approximant and dental approximant do not have dedicated symbols either and are transcribed in a similar fashion: [β̞, ð̞]. However, the base letters are understood to specifically refer to the fricatives.)

Pseudo-fricatives [edit]

• [h] voiceless glottal transition, as in English hat
• [ɦ] breathy-voiced glottal transition

In many languages, such as English, the glottal "fricatives" are unaccompanied phonation states of the glottis, without any accompanying manner, fricative or otherwise. However, in languages such as Arabic, they are true fricatives.^[1]

In addition, [ʍ] is usually called a "voiceless labial-velar fricative", but it is actually an approximant. True doubly-articulated fricatives may not occur in any language; but see voiceless palatal-velar fricative for a putative (and rather controversial) example.

Languages [edit]

H is not a fricative in English (see /h/). The other fricatives come in voiceless-voiced pairs: /f v, θ ð, s z, ʃ ʒ/.

Ubykh may be the language with the most fricatives (29 not including /h/), some of which do not have good symbols or diacritics in the IPA. This number actually outstrips the number of all consonants in English (which has 24 consonants). By contrast, approximately 8.7% of the world's languages display no phonemic fricatives at all.^[2] This is a typical feature of Australian Aboriginal languages, where the few fricatives that exist result from changes to plosives or approximants, but also occurs in some indigenous languages of New Guinea and South America that have especially small numbers of consonants. However, whereas [h] is entirely unknown in indigenous Australian languages, most of the other languages without true fricatives do have [h] in their consonant inventory.

Voicing contrasts in fricatives are largely confined to Europe, Africa, and Western Asia. Languages of South and East Asia, such as the Dravidian and Austronesian languages, typically do not have such voiced fricatives as [z] and [v], which are very familiar to European speakers. These voiced fricatives are also relatively rare in indigenous languages of the Americas. Overall, voicing contrasts in fricatives are much rarer than in plosives, being found only in about a third of the world's languages as compared to 60 percent for plosive voicing contrasts.^[3]

About 15 percent of the world's languages, however, have unpaired voiced fricatives, i.e., a voiced fricative without a voiceless counterpart. Two-thirds of these, or 10 percent of all languages, have unpaired voiced fricatives but no voicing contrast between any fricative pair.^[4]

This phenomenon occurs because voiced fricatives have developed from lenition of plosives or fortition of approximants. This phenomenon of unpaired voiced fricatives is scattered throughout the world, but is confined to nonsibilant fricatives with the exception of a couple of languages that have [ʒ] but lack [ʃ]. (Relatedly, several languages have the voiced affricate [dʒ] but lack [tʃ].) The fricatives that occur most often without a voiceless counterpart are, in order of ratio of unpaired occurrences to total occurrences, [ʝ], [β], [ð], [ʁ] and [ɣ].

See also [edit]

• Apical consonant
• Hush consonant
• Laminal consonant
• List of phonetics topics

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• Fricatives in English

v t e   International Phonetic Alphabet   IPA topics IPA International Phonetic Association History of the IPA Extensions to the IPA Kiel convention (1989) Journal of the IPA (JIPA) Naming conventions Phonetics Diacritics Segments Tone letter Place of articulation Manner of articulation Special topics Case variants of IPA letters Handwritten IPA Obsolete and nonstandard symbols IPA chart for English dialects Encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Conlang X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode WorldBet IPA Braille   Consonants v t e IPA pulmonic consonantschart image • audio Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Radical Glottal ↓ Manner Bila­bial Labio-​dental Den​tal Alve​olar Post­alveolar Retro​flex Alveolo-​palatal Pal​a​tal Ve​lar Uvu​lar Pha​ryn​geal Epi​glot​tal Glot​tal Nasal m̥ m ɱ n̪ n̥ n n̠ ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̟ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ Stop p b p̪ b̪ t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Sibilant fricative s̪ z̪ s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ ð θ̱ ð̠ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Approximant ʋ ɹ ɻ j̊ j ɰ Flap or tap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̯ Trill ʙ r̥ r ɽ͡r ʀ ᴙ * Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ꞎ * ʎ̝̊ ʟ̝̊ ʟ̝ Lateral approximant l̥ l ɭ ʎ̟ ʎ ʟ Lateral flap ɺ ɺ̢ * ʎ̯ ʟ̆ Non-pulmonic consonants Clicks ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ ʘ̃ ʘ̃ˀ ʘ͡q ʘ͡qʼ ‼ Implosives ɓ ɗ ʄ ᶑ ɠ ʛ Ejectives pʼ t̪ʼ tʼ cʼ ʈʼ kʼ qʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ɬʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ tsʼ tɬʼ cʎ̝̥ʼ tʃʼ ʈʂʼ kxʼ kʟ̝̊ʼ qχʼ Affricates p̪f b̪v ts dz t̪s̪ d̪z̪ tθ dð tʃ dʒ tɕ dʑ ʈʂ ɖʐ tɬ dɮ cç ɟʝ cʎ̥˔ kx ɡɣ kʟ̝̊ ɡʟ̝ qχ ɢʁ Co-articulated consonants Continuants ʍ w ɥ ɧ Occlusives k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m — These tables contain phonetic symbols, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] — Where symbols appear in pairs, left–right represent the voiceless–voiced consonants. — Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged to be impossible. — Symbols marked with an asterisk (*) are not defined in the IPA. Chart image Pulmonics Non-pulmonics Affricates Co-articulated   Vowels Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close •iy •ɨʉ •ɯu •ɪʏ •ɪ̈ʊ̈ ʊ •eø •ɘɵ •ɤo •e̞ø̞ ə •ɤ̞o̞ •ɛœ •ɜɞ •ʌɔ æ ɐ •aɶ ä •ɑɒ Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open IPA help • chart •  chart with audio • view