Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate

The voiceless alveolar lateral affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is t͡ɬ (often simplified to ), and in Americanist phonetic notation it is ⟨ƛ⟩ (barred lambda).

Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate
ƛ
IPA Number103 (148)
Audio sample
Encoding
Entity (decimal)t​͡​ɬ
Unicode (hex)U+0074 U+0361 U+026C

Features

Features of the voiceless alveolar lateral affricate:

  • Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
  • Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
  • Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
  • It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
  • It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.
  • The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

LanguageWordIPAMeaningNotes
ArabicLevantineثلاثة/tlete[t͡ɬe̞ːte̞]'three'Allophone of /tl/
AvarлӀугьине[t͡ɬ:uhine]'to become'
CherokeeOtalitla[t͡ɬa]'no'
ChukchiԒыгъоравэтԓьэн[ɬəɣˀorawetɬˀɛn]'Chukchi'
Haidatla'únhl[t͡ɬʌʊ́nɬ]'six'
Hebrewתלונה/tluna[ˈt͡ɬuna]'complaint'Pronunciation of /tl/ sequence by some speakers.
Icelandicbolli[ˈpɔt͡ɬɪ]'cup'See Icelandic phonology.
Ladintlo[t͡ɬo]'here'Gherdëina variant
NahuatlNahuatl'Nahuatl language'
Pa Na[t͡ɬa˧˥]'frost'
Sahaptin[t͡ɬupt]'jumping'
SpanishMexican[1]Xóchitl[ˈʃo̞t͡ʃit͡ɬ]'Xóchitl'See Spanish phonology.
Tlingit[2]tleilóo'butterfly'Distinguishes aspirated and unaspirated
TsezэлIни/eƛni[ˈʔɛ̝t͡ɬni]'winter'
Tswanatlala[t͡ɬala]'hunger'

References

Sources

  • Lope Blanch, Juan M. (2004), Cuestiones de filología mexicana, Mexico: editorial Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, ISBN 978-970-32-0976-7
  • Maddieson, Ian; Smith, Caroline; Bessell, Nicola (2001), "Aspects of the phonetics of Tlingit", Anthropological Linguistics, 43 (2): 135–176, JSTOR 30028779
  • Chen, Qiguang [陈其光]. 2001. "A Brief Introduction of Bana Language [巴那语概况]". Minzu Yuwen.

External links