Alveolar lateral approximant

Alveolar lateral approximant
l
Image
IPA number	155
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	l
Unicode (hex)	U+006C
X-SAMPA	l
Kirshenbaum	l
Sound
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The alveolar lateral approximant, also known as clear l, is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is ⟨l⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is l.

As a sonorant, lateral approximants are nearly always voiced. Voiceless lateral approximants are common in Tibeto-Burman languages, but uncommon elsewhere. In such cases, voicing typically starts about halfway through the hold of the consonant.

In a number of languages, including most varieties of English, the phoneme /l/ becomes velarized in certain contexts, a sound often called "dark l."

Features

Features of the alveolar lateral approximant:

• Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but not enough to produce a turbulent airstream.
• 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 voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• 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 lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abkhaz		мгьал	[mɡʲal]	'bread'	See Abkhaz phonology
Adyghe		лы	[lə]	'meat'
Albanian		lis	[lɪs]	'tree'
Arabic	Standard[1]	لا	[laː]	'no'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian		լուսին	[lusin] (help·info)	'moon'
Basque		lan	[lan]	'work'
Bulgarian		лук	[luk]	'onion'
Catalan		tela	[ˈtɛlə]	'fabric'	May also be velarized. See Catalan phonology
Chechen		лам/lam	[laːm]	'mountain'
Chinese	Cantonese	老/lou5	[lou˩˧˦]	'old'	See Cantonese phonology
	Mandarin	老/lǎo	[lɑʊ˨˩˦]	'old'	See Mandarin phonology
Czech		lis	[lɪs]	'press'	See Czech phonology
Dutch		leven	[leːvə(n)]	'to live'	See Dutch phonology
English		let	[lɛt]	'let'	See English phonology
Finnish		illalla	[ilːɑlːɑ]	'at evening'	See Finnish phonology
French		il	[il]	'he'	See French phonology
Georgian[2]		ლუდი	[ludi]	'beer'
German		Liebe	[liːbə]	'love'	See German phonology
Greek		άλμα/álma	[ˈalma]	'jump'	See Modern Greek phonology
Hebrew		לא	[lo̞]	'no'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hungarian		elem	[ɛlɛm]	'battery'	See Hungarian phonology
Innu-aimun	Western dialect	iñnu	[i:lnu]	'human being'
Italian[3]		letto	[ˈlɛtto]	'bed'	See Italian phonology
Kabardian		лы	[lə]	'meat'
Kagayanen[4]		?	[sala]	'living room'
Korean		물집/muljip	[mult͡ɕ̤ip̚]	'blister'	See Korean phonology
Macedonian		лево	[lɛvɔ]	'left'	See Macedonian phonology
Malay		lagi	[laɡi]	'again'
Melpa[5]		[lola]		'speak improperly'
Ngwe	Njoagwi dialect	[lɛ̀rɛ́]		'eye'
Norwegian		liv	[liːv]	'life'	See Norwegian phonology
Pashto		لس	[ləs]	'ten'
Polish[6]		pole	[ˈpɔlɛ] (help·info)	'field'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese	Brazilian	lua	[ˈluɐ]	'moon'	See Portuguese phonology
Romanian		alună	[aˈlu.nə]	'hazelnut'	See Romanian phonology
Russian		ключ	[klʲʉtɕ] (help·info)	'key'	Contrasts palatalized and velarized variants. See Russian phonology
Slovak[7]		mĺkvy	[ˈml̩ːkʋɪ]	'silent'	Syllabic form can be long or short
Spanish[8]		hablar	[aˈβ̞laɾ]	'to speak'	See Spanish phonology
Swedish		allt	[alt]	'everything'	See Swedish phonology
Tamil[9]		புலி	[puli]	'tiger'	See Tamil phonology
Tibetan		ལྷ་ས་	[l̥ásə]	'Lhasa'	Contrasts voiced and voiceless lateral approximants
Ukrainian		обличчя	[ɔˈblɪt͡ʃʲːɑ]	'face'	See Ukrainian phonology
Vietnamese[10]		lửa	[lɨə˧˩˧]	'fire'	See Vietnamese phonology
West Frisian		lyts	[lit͡s]	'small'	In complementary distribution with [ɫ]; occurs before [i] and [y]
Yi		ꇁ/la	[la˧]	'come'
Zapotec	Tilquiapan[11]	lan	[laŋ]	'soot'
Zulu[12]		lala	[lálà]	'sleep'

See also

• List of phonetics topics
• velarized alveolar lateral approximant

References

Bibliography

• Hanulíková, Adriana; Hamann, Silke (2010), "Slovak", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 40 (3): 373–378, doi:10.1017/S0025100310000162 
• Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (1): 103–107, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001191 
• Keane, Elinor (2004), "Tamil", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 111–116, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001549 
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell 
• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255–259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373 
• Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (1): 107–114 
• Olson, Kenneth; Mielke, Jeff; Sanicas-Daguman, Josephine; Pebley, Carol Jean; Paterson, Hugh J., III (2010), "The phonetic status of the (inter)dental approximant", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 40 (2): 199–215, doi:10.1017/S0025100309990296 
• Rogers, Derek; d'Arcangeli, Luciana (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117–121, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001628 
• Shosted, Ryan K.; Vakhtang, Chikovani (2006), "Standard Georgian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (2): 255–264, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002659 
• Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20 (2): 37–41 
• Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232 

v t e   International Phonetic Alphabet   IPA topics IPA International Phonetic Association History of 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 Extensions to the IPA Obsolete and nonstandard symbols IPA chart for English dialects Encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Conlang X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode WorldBet   Consonants v t e IPA pulmonic consonants chartchart image • audio Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Radical Glottal ↓ Manner Bila​bial Labio​dental Den​tal Alve​olar Post​alv. Retro​flex Pal​a​tal Ve​lar Uvu​lar Pha​ryn​geal Epi​glot​tal Glot​tal Nasal m̥ m ɱ n̪ n̥ n n̠ ɳ ɲ̥ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ Stop p b p̪ b̪ t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Fricative ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Approximant ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Trill ʙ r ɽ͡r ʀ я * Flap or tap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̯ Lateral Fric. ɬ ɮ ɭ˔̊ ʎ̥˔ ʟ̝̊ ʟ̝ Lateral Appr. l ɭ ʎ ʟ Lateral flap ɺ ɺ̠ ʎ̯ Non-pulmonic consonants Clicks ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ ʘ̃ ʘ̃ˀ ʘ͡q ʘ͡qʼ Implosives ɓ ɗ ʄ ᶑ ɠ ʛ Ejectives pʼ tʼ cʼ ʈʼ kʼ qʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ɬʼ xʼ χʼ tsʼ tɬʼ cʎ̝̥ʼ tʃʼ ʈʂʼ kxʼ kʟ̝̊ʼ Affricates p̪f b̪v ts dz tʃ dʒ tɕ dʑ ʈʂ ɖʐ tɬ dɮ cç ɟʝ cʎ̥˔ kʟ̝̊ Co-articulated consonants Fricatives ɕ ʑ ɧ Approximants ʍ w ɥ ɫ Stops 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. * Symbol not defined in 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 Vowels: IPA help • chart •  chart with audio • view