Avoiced alveolar approximant is a type ofconsonantal sound used in some spokenlanguages. It is familiar to most English-speakers as the "r" sound in "rose" (though see below). The symbol in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet that represents it is ⟨ɹ⟩, the lowercaseLatin letterr rotated 180 degrees.
Phonetic realisation of /r/, especially in some Eastern Dialects and sometimes in conjunct before consonants. Corresponds to [r ~ɾ] in others. SeeBengali phonology
Allophone of the more usual and traditional flap or trill[ɾ~r] and is sometimes thus pronounced by some younger speakers due to exposure to mainstream English.
Some languages have a voiced (post)alveolar approximant that is acoustically distinct from a typical[ɹ], which has variously been described as being '[z]-like,'[14] 'non-rhotic',[15] or 'non-sulcalized'.[16] Some authors have reported the distinction as one of articulation, with the formerly mentioned sound being classified aslaminal, while a typical[ɹ] is distinguished asapical.[17] The distinction may also be made as a phonological classing, between a 'rhotic approximant' and a 'frictionless continuant approximant'.[18] The International Phonetic Alphabet has no symbol to represent this sound, but possible transcriptions with diacritics include ⟨z̞⟩ (alowered[z]) and ⟨ð̠˕⟩ (a lowered andretracted[ð]), both of which have been used in literature.Several symbols have been proposed to represent this sound, but none have become widely accepted.
Corresponds to/rr/ in standard Italian, as well as word-initial/r/. Can be alveolar[z̞] or postalveolar[ʒ̞], depending on the speaker, both of which may also be geminated. Described as 'non-sulcalizedsonorants', articulated without contact, though may retain some degree of frication; may be closer to anon-sibilant fricative, depending on the speaker.[16]
Usually apical.[22] In free variation with a weak fricative[ð̠];[23] variably removed from the front teeth, up to (nearly) spot on[ð̞].[24] SeeIcelandic phonology.
Realized as[z̞z] when word initial,geminate[z̞ː] when presyllabic, variable when medial, and plain[z̞] when word final. Phonemically transcribed as/ž/ or/žž/. Devoiced to[s̞] following a voiceless bilabial plosive/p/.[14] SeeMiyakoan language § Phonology
A schematic mid-sagittal section of an articulation of a voiced postalveolar approximant [ɹ̠].
The most common sound represented by the letterr in English is thevoiced postalveolar approximant, pronounced further back than a typical[ɹ] and transcribed more precisely in IPA as ⟨ɹ̠⟩, but ⟨ɹ⟩ is often used for convenience in its place. For further ease of typesetting, English phonemic transcriptions might use the symbol ⟨r⟩ even though this symbol represents thealveolar trill in phonetic transcription.
Thebunched or molar r sounds remarkably similar to the postalveolar approximant and can be described as avoiced labial pre-velar approximant with tongue-tip retraction.
^Árnason (2011:106, 108): "[It is] doubtful whether the voiced fricatives are to be classified as such, rather than as approximants." "The weakness of the articulation of the voiced sounds makes them at times more like approximants, and they are very easily deleted intervocalically in natural speech[.]"
Ball, Martin J.; Rahilly, Joan; Lowry, Orla; Bessell, Nicola; Lee, Alice (2020),Phonetics for Speech Pathology, Communication Disorders and Clinical Linguistics (3rd ed.),University of Toronto Press,ISBN978-1781791790
Ball, Martin J. (2025), "Additional Phonetic Symbols for the Transcription of Typical and Atypical Speech",Journal of Connected Speech,1 (1):106–119,doi:10.3138/jcspeech.29303
Browman, C.P.; Goldstein, L. (1995), "Gestural syllable position in American English", in Bell-Berti, F.; Raphael, L.J. (eds.),Producing Speech: Contemporary Issues: for Katherine Safford Harris, New York:American Institute of Physics, pp. 9–33
Fougeron, C. (1999), "Prosodically conditioned articulatory variation: A Review",UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, vol. 97, pp. 1–73
Grønnum, Nina (2003), "Why are the Danes so hard to understand?", in Jacobsen, Henrik Galberg; Bleses, Dorthe; Madsen, Thomas O.; Thomsen, Pia (eds.),Take Danish - for instance: linguistic studies in honour of Hans Basbøll, presented on the occasion of his 60th birthday, Odense:Syddansk Universitetsforlag, pp. 119–130
Hallé, Pierre A.; Best, Catherine T.; Levitt, Andrea (1999), "Phonetic vs. phonological influences on French listeners' perception of American English approximants",Journal of Phonetics,27 (3):281–306,doi:10.1006/jpho.1999.0097
Puech, Gilbert (2013), "Prime constituents of Maltese sounds", in Borg, Albert; Caruana, Sandro; Vella, Alexandra (eds.),Perspectives on Maltese Linguistics, Berlin:Akademie Verlag, pp. 61–88,ISBN978-3-05-006275-4
Recasens, Daniel (2004), "The effect of syllable position on consonant reduction (evidence from Catalan consonant clusters)",Journal of Phonetics,32 (3):435–453,doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2004.02.001
Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur (2017) [2013]."Hljóðkerfi og orðhlutakerfi Íslensku" [Phonology and phonotactics of Icelandic](PDF) (in Icelandic).Archived(PDF) from the original on 18 Sep 2024.
Zawadzki, P.A.; Kuehn, D.P. (1980), "A cineradiographic study of static and dynamic aspects of American English/r/",Phonetica,37 (4):253–266,doi:10.1159/000259995,PMID7443796,S2CID46760239
