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approximant

  (ə-prŏk'sə-mənt) pronunciation
n.

A speech sound, such as a glide or liquid, produced by narrowing but not blocking the vocal tract, as by placing an articulator, such as the tongue, near another part of the vocal tract.


 
 
Wikipedia: Approximant consonant
Manners of articulation
Obstruent
Stop
Affricate
Fricative
Sibilant
Sonorant
Nasal
Flaps/Tap
Trill
Approximant
Liquid
Vowel
Semivowel
Lateral
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help]

Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. In the articulation of approximants, articulatory organs produce a narrowing of the vocal tract, but leave enough space for air to flow without much audible turbulence. Approximants are therefore more open than fricatives. This class of sounds includes lateral approximants like [l], as in lip, and approximants like [j] and [w] in yes and well which correspond closely to vowels and semivowels.

Corresponding vowels

Palatal approximants correspond to front vowels, velar approximants to back vowels, and labialized approximants to rounded vowels. They are typically briefer and closer than the corresponding vowels.

Approximants vs. fricatives

When emphasized, approximants may be slightly fricated (that is, the airstream may become slightly turbulent), which is reminiscent of fricatives. Examples are the y of English yes! (especially when lengthened) and the "weak" allophones of Spanish b, d, g, which are often transcribed as fricatives (often due perhaps to a lack of dedicated approximant symbols). However, such frication is generally slight and intermittent, unlike the strong turbulence of fricative consonants.

This confusion is also common with voiceless approximants, which necessarily have a certain amount of fricative-like noise. For example, the voiceless labialized velar approximant [ʍ] has traditionally been called a fricative. Tibetan has a voiceless lateral approximant, [l̥], and Welsh has a voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ], but the distinction is not always clear from descriptions of these languages.

For places of articulation further back in the mouth, languages do not contrast voiced fricatives and approximants. Therefore the IPA allows the symbols for the voiced fricatives to double for the central approximants, with or without a lowering diacritic.

Occasionally the glottal "fricatives" are called approximants, since [h] typically has no more frication than voiceless approximants, but they are often phonations of the glottis without any accompanying manner or place of articulation.

Central approximants

Lateral approximants

Coarticulated approximants with dedicated IPA symbols

A "central" approximant?

Although many languages have central vowels [ɨ, ʉ] which lie between back/velar [ɯ, u] and front/palatal [i, y], there are no confirmed reports of corresponding approximants. However, Mapudungun may be a possibility: It has three high vowel sounds, /i/, /u/, /ɨ/, written "i", "u", "ü", and three corresponding consonants, written "y", "w", "q". The first two are clearly /j/ and /w/. The "q" is often described as a voiced unrounded velar fricative, but some texts note a correspondence between "q" and /ɨ/ that is parallel to /j/-/i/ and /w/-/u/. An example is liq /'liɣ/ "white".[1]

References

  1. ^ Listen to a recording

See also

  Consonants (List, table) See also: IPA, Vowels  
Pulmonics Bilabial Lab'den. Dental Alveolar Postalv. Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn. Epiglottal Glottal Non-pulmonics and other symbols
Nasals m ɱ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ
Plosives p b t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Implo­­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ
Fricatives  ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Ejec­­tives 
Approximants  β̞ ʋ ð̞ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Other laterals  ɺ ɫ
Trills ʙ r ʀ Co-articulated approximants  ʍ w ɥ
Flaps & Taps ѵ ɾ ɽ Co-articulated fricatives  ɕ ʑ ɧ
Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ Affricates  ʦ ʣ ʧ ʤ
Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help]
Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.

 
 

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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Approximant consonant" Read more

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