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| Palatalized | |
|---|---|
| ◌ʲ | |
| IPA number | 421 |
| Encoding | |
| Entity(decimal) | ʲ |
| Unicode(hex) | U+02B2 |
Inphonetics,palatalization (/ˌpælətəlaɪˈzeɪʃən/ⓘ,US also/-lɪ-/) orpalatization is a way of pronouncing a consonant in which part of the tongue is moved close to thehard palate. Consonants pronounced this way are said to bepalatalized and are transcribed in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet by affixing a superscriptj ⟨ʲ⟩ to the base consonant. Palatalization is notphonemic in English, but it is in Slavic languages such asRussian andUkrainian, Finnic languages such asEstonian,Karelian, andVõro, and other languages such asIrish,Marshallese,Kashmiri, andJapanese.
In technical terms, palatalization refers to thesecondary articulation ofconsonants by which the body of thetongue is raised toward thehard palate and thealveolar ridge during the articulation of the consonant. Such consonants are phonetically palatalized. "Pure" palatalization is a modification to the articulation of a consonant, where the middle of the tongue is raised, and nothing else. It may produce alaminal articulation of otherwiseapical consonants such as/t/ and/s/.
Phonetically palatalized consonants may vary in their exact realization. Some languages addsemivowels before or after the palatalized consonant (onglides or offglides). In such cases, the vowel (especially a non-front vowel) following a palatalized consonant typically has a palatal onglide. InRussian, both plain and palatalized consonant phonemes are found in words likeбольшой[bɐlʲˈʂoj]ⓘ,царь[tsarʲ]ⓘ andКатя[ˈkatʲə]ⓘ. InHupa, on the other hand, the palatalization is heard as both an onglide and an offglide. In some cases, the realization of palatalization may change without any corresponding phonemic change. For example, according to Thurneysen,[1] palatalized consonants at the end of a syllable inOld Irish had a corresponding onglide (reflected as⟨i⟩ in the spelling), which was no longer present inMiddle Irish (based on explicit testimony of grammarians of the time).
In a few languages, includingSkolt Sami and many of theCentral Chadic languages, palatalization is asuprasegmental feature that affects the pronunciation of an entire syllable, and it may cause certain vowels to be pronouncedmore front and consonants to be slightly palatalized. InSkolt Sami and its relatives (Kildin Sami andTer Sami), suprasegmental palatalization contrasts with segmental palatal articulation (palatal consonants).
In theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), palatalized consonants are marked by themodifier letter⟨ʲ⟩, asuperscript version of the symbol for thepalatal approximant ⟨j⟩. For instance, ⟨tʲ⟩ represents the palatalized form of thevoiceless alveolar stop[t].Prior to 1989, a subscript diacritic was used in the IPA: ⟨ᶀᶈᶆᶂᶌƫᶁᶇᶊᶎᶅ𝼓ᶉ𝼖𝼕ᶄᶃ𝼔ᶍꞕ⟩, apart from two palatalized fricatives which were written instead with curly-tailed variants, namely ⟨ʆ⟩ for[ʃʲ] and ⟨ʓ⟩ for[ʒʲ]. (Seepalatal hook.) TheUralic Phonetic Alphabet marks palatalized consonants by anacute accent, as do some Finnic languages using the Latin alphabet, as inVõro⟨ś⟩. Others use an apostrophe, as inKarelian⟨s'⟩; or digraphs inj, as in theSavonian dialects ofFinnish,⟨sj⟩.
Palatalization has varyingphonological significance in different languages. It isallophonic in English, butphonemic in others. In English, consonants are palatalized when they occur before front vowels or the palatal approximant (and in a few other cases), but no words are distinguished by palatalization (complementary distribution), whereas in some of the other languages, the difference between palatalized consonants and plain un-palatalized consonantsdistinguishes between words, appearing in acontrastive distribution (where one of the two versions, palatalized or not, appears in the same environment as the other).
In some languages, like Hindustani, palatalization isallophonic. Somephonemes have palatalized allophones in certain contexts, typically beforefront vowels and unpalatalized allophones elsewhere. Because it is allophonic, palatalization of this type does notdistinguish words and often goes unnoticed by native speakers. Phonetic palatalization occurs in American English. Stops are palatalized before the front vowel/i/ and not palatalized in other cases.
In some languages, palatalization is adistinctive feature that distinguishes two consonantphonemes. This feature occurs inRussian,Irish, andScottish Gaelic, among others.
Phonemic palatalization may be contrasted with either plain orvelarized articulation. In many of theSlavic languages, and some of theBaltic andFinnic languages, palatalized consonants contrast with plain consonants, but inIrish they contrast with velarized consonants.
Some palatalized phonemes undergo change beyond phonetic palatalization. For instance, the unpalatalized sibilant (Irish/sˠ/, Scottish/s̪/) has a palatalized counterpart that is actuallypostalveolar[ʃ], not phonetically palatalized[sʲ], and the velar fricative/x/ in both languages has a palatalized counterpart that is actually palatal[ç] rather than palatalized velar[xʲ]. These shifts in primaryplace of articulation are examples of the sound change ofpalatalization.
In some languages, palatalization is used as amorpheme or part of a morpheme. In some cases, a vowel caused a consonant to become palatalized, and then this vowel was lost byelision. Here, there appears to be aphonemic contrast when analysis of thedeep structure shows it to be allophonic.
InRomanian, consonants are palatalized before/i/. Palatalized consonants appear at the end of the word, and mark the plural in nouns and adjectives, and the second person singular in verbs.[2] On the surface, it would appear then thatban[ban] "coin" forms aminimal pair withbani[banʲ]. The interpretation commonly taken, however, is that an underlying morpheme|-i| palatalizes the consonant and is subsequently deleted.
Palatalization may also occur as amorphological feature. For example, although Russian makes phonemic contrasts between palatalized and unpalatalized consonants, alternations across morpheme boundaries are normal:[3]
In some languages, allophonic palatalization developed into phonemic palatalization byphonemic split. In other languages, phonemes that were originally phonetically palatalized changed further: palatal secondary place of articulation developed into changes in manner of articulation or primary place of articulation.
Phonetic palatalization of a consonant sometimes causes surrounding vowels to change bycoarticulation orassimilation. In Russian, "soft" (palatalized) consonants are usually followed by vowels that are relatively morefront (that is, closer to[i] or[y]), and vowels following "hard" (unpalatalized) consonants are furtherback. SeeRussian phonology § Allophony for more information.
In manySlavic languages, palatal or palatalized consonants are calledsoft, and others are calledhard. Some of them, likeRussian, have numerous pairs of palatalized and unpalatalized consonant phonemes.
Russian Cyrillic has pairs of vowel letters that mark whether the consonant preceding them is hard/soft:⟨а⟩/⟨я⟩,⟨э⟩/⟨е⟩,⟨ы⟩/⟨и⟩,⟨о⟩/⟨ё⟩, and⟨у⟩/⟨ю⟩.The otherwisesilentsoft sign⟨ь⟩ also indicates that the previous consonant is soft.
Irish andScottish Gaelic have pairs of palatalized (slender) and unpalatalized (broad) consonant phonemes. In Irish, most broad consonants arevelarized. In Scottish Gaelic, the only velarized consonants are[n̪ˠ] and[l̪ˠ];[r] is sometimes described as velarized as well.[4][5]
Yōon areJapanese moras formed with an added[j] sound between the initial consonant and the vowel. For example, 今日 (kyō, "today") is written きょう [kʲoo], using a small version ofよ, while 器用 (kiyō, "skillful") is written きよう [kijoo], with a full-sized よ.Historically,yōon were not distinguished with the smaller kana and had to be determined by context.
In theMarshallese language, each consonant has some type of secondary articulation (palatalization, velarization, orlabiovelarization). The palatalized consonants are regarded as "light", and the velarized and rounded consonants are regarded as "heavy", with the rounded consonants being both velarized and labialized.
ManyNorwegian dialects have phonemic palatalized consonants. In many parts of Northern Norway and many areas of Møre og Romsdal, for example, the words/hɑnː/ ('hand') and /hɑnʲː/ ('he') are differentiated only by the palatalization of the final consonant. Palatalization is generally realised only on stressed syllables, but speakers of the Sør-Trøndelag dialects will generally palatalize the coda of a determined plural as well: e.g./hunʲː.ɑnʲ/ or, in other areas,/hʉnʲː.ɑn/ ('the dogs'), rather than */hunʲː.ɑn/. Norwegian dialects utilizing palatalization will generally palatalize/d/,/l/,/n/ and/t/.