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| IPA:Ejective consonants | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Inphonetics,ejective consonants are usuallyvoicelessconsonants that are pronounced with aglottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast withaspirated, voiced andtenuis consonants. Some languages have glottalizedsonorants withcreaky voice that pattern with ejectives phonologically, and other languages have ejectives that pattern withimplosives, which has led to phonologists positing a phonological class ofglottalic consonants, which includes ejectives.
In producing an ejective, thestylohyoid muscle anddigastric muscle contract, causing thehyoid bone and the connected glottis to rise, and the forward articulation (at the velum in the case of[kʼ]) is held, raising air pressure greatly in the mouth so when the oral articulators separate, there is a dramatic burst of air.[1] TheAdam's apple may be seen moving when the sound is pronounced. In the languages in which they are more obvious, ejectives are often described as sounding like "spat" consonants, but ejectives are often quite weak. In some contexts and in some languages, they are easy to mistake for tenuis or even voiced stops.[2] These weakly ejective articulations are sometimes calledintermediates in older American linguistic literature and are notated with different phonetic symbols: ⟨C!⟩ = strongly ejective, ⟨Cʼ⟩ = weakly ejective. Strong and weak ejectives have not been found to becontrastive in any natural language.
In strict, technical terms, ejectives areglottalic egressive consonants. The most common ejective is[kʼ] even if it is more difficult to produce than other ejectives like[tʼ] or[pʼ] because the auditory distinction between[kʼ] and[k] is greater than with other ejectives and voiceless consonants of the sameplace of articulation.[3] In proportion to the frequency ofuvular consonants,[qʼ] is even more common, as would be expected from the very small oral cavity used to pronounce avoiceless uvular stop.[citation needed][pʼ], on the other hand, is quite rare. That is the opposite pattern to what is found in theimplosive consonants, in which the bilabial is common and the velar is rare.[4]
Ejective fricatives are rare for presumably the same reason: with the air escaping from the mouth while the pressure is being raised, like inflating a leaky bicycle tire, it is harder to distinguish the resulting sound as salient as a[kʼ].
Ejectives occur in about 20% of the world's languages.[3] Ejectives that phonemically contrast with pulmonic consonants occur in about 15% of languages around the world. The occurrence of ejectives often correlates to languages in mountainous regions such as theCaucasus which forms an island of ejective languages. They are also found frequently in theEast African Rift and the South African Plateau (seeGeography of Africa). In the Americas, they are extremely common in theNorth American Cordillera. They also frequently occur throughout theAndes andMaya Mountains. Elsewhere, they are rare.
Language families that distinguish ejective consonants include:
According to theglottalic theory, theProto-Indo-European language had a series of ejectives (or, in some versions,implosives), but no extant Indo-European language has retained them.[a] Ejectives are found today inOssetian and someArmenian dialects only because of influence of the nearbyNortheast Caucasian and/orKartvelian language families.
It had once been predicted that ejectives and implosives would not be found in the same language[citation needed] but both have been found phonemically at several points of articulation inNilo-Saharan languages (Gumuz,Me'en, andT'wampa),Mayan language (Yucatec),Salishan (Lushootseed), and theOto-MangueanMazahua.Nguni languages, such asZulu have an implosiveb alongside a series of allophonically ejective stops.Dahalo ofKenya, has ejectives, implosives, andclick consonants.
Non-contrastively, ejectives are found in many varieties ofBritish English, usually replacing word-final fortis plosives in utterance-final or emphatic contexts.[5][6][7]
Almost all ejective consonants in the world's languages arestops oraffricates, and all ejective consonants areobstruents.[kʼ] is the most common ejective, and[qʼ] is common among languages withuvulars,[tʼ] less so, and[pʼ] is uncommon. Among affricates,[tsʼ],[tʃʼ],[tɬʼ] are all quite common, and[kxʼ] and[ʈʂʼ] are not unusual ([kxʼ] is particularly common among theKhoisan languages, where it is the ejective equivalent of/k/).
| Bilabial | Labio- dental | Dental | Alveolar | Labial- alveolar | Post- alveolar | Retroflex | Alveolo- palatal | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Epi- glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop (voiced) | pʼ | t̪ʼ | tʼ | t͡pʼ[b] | ʈʼ | cʼ | kʼ ɡ͡kʼ | qʼ ɢ͡qʼ | ʡʼ | |||
| Affricate (voiced) | p̪fʼ | t̪θʼ | tsʼ d͡tsʼ | tʃʼ d͡tʃʼ | ʈʂʼ | tɕʼ | kxʼ ɡ͡kxʼ | qχʼ ɢ͡qχʼ | ||||
| Fricative | ɸʼ | fʼ | θʼ | sʼ | ʃʼ | ʂʼ | ɕʼ | xʼ | χʼ | |||
| Lateral affricate | tɬʼ | c𝼆ʼ (cʎ̝̊ʼ) | k𝼄ʼ (kʟ̝̊ʼ) | |||||||||
| Lateral fricative | ɬʼ | |||||||||||
| Trill | (theoretical) | |||||||||||
| Nasal | (theoretical) | |||||||||||
A few languages have ejective fricatives. In some dialects ofHausa, the standard affricate[tsʼ] is a fricative[sʼ];Ubykh (Northwest Caucasian, now extinct) had an ejective lateral fricative[ɬʼ]; and the relatedKabardian also has ejective labiodental and alveolopalatal fricatives,[fʼ],[ʃʼ],and[ɬʼ].Tlingit is an extreme case, with ejective alveolar, lateral, velar, and uvular fricatives,[sʼ],[ɬʼ],[xʼ],[xʷʼ],[χʼ],[χʷʼ]; it may be the only language with the last type.Upper Necaxa Totonac is unusual and perhaps unique in that it has ejective fricatives (alveolar, lateral, and postalveolar[sʼ],[ʃʼ],[ɬʼ]) but lacks any ejective stop or affricate (Beck 2006). Other languages with ejective fricatives areYuchi, which some sources analyze as having[ɸʼ],[sʼ],[ʃʼ],and[ɬʼ] (but not the analysis of the Wikipedia article),Keres dialects, with[sʼ],[ʂʼ]and[ɕʼ],[citation needed] andLakota, with[sʼ],[ʃʼ],and[xʼ] .[citation needed]Amharic is interpreted by many as having an ejective fricative[sʼ], at least historically, but it has been also analyzed as now being a sociolinguistic variant (Takkele Taddese 1992).
An ejective retroflex stop[ʈʼ] is rare. It has been reported fromYawelmani and otherYokuts languages,Tolowa, andGwich'in.
Because the complete closing of the glottis required to form an ejective makes voicing impossible, the allophonic voicing of ejective phonemes causes them to lose their glottalization; this occurs inBlin (modal voice) andKabardian (creaky voice). A similar historical sound change also occurred inVeinakh andLezgic in the Caucasus, and it has been postulated by theglottalic theory for Indo-European.[2] SomeKhoisan languages have voiced ejective stops andvoiced ejective clicks; however, they actually containmixed voicing, and the ejective release is voiceless.
Ejective trills aren't attested in any language, even allophonically. An ejective[rʼ] would necessarily be voiceless,[9] but the vibration of the trill, combined with a lack of the intense voiceless airflow of[r̥], gives an impression like that of voicing. Similarly, ejective nasals such as[mʼ,nʼ,ŋʼ] (also necessarily voiceless) are possible.[10][full citation needed][11][full citation needed] (An apostrophe is commonly seen withr,l and nasals, but that isAmericanist phonetic notation for aglottalized consonant and does not indicate an ejective.)
Other ejectivesonorants are not known to occur. When sonorants are transcribed with an apostrophe in the literature as if they were ejective, they actually involve a different airstream mechanism: they areglottalized consonants and vowels whose glottalization partially or fully interrupts an otherwise normal voiced pulmonic airstream, somewhat like Englishuh-uh (either vocalic or nasal) pronounced as a single sound. Often the constriction of the larynx causes it to rise in the vocal tract, but this is individual variation and not the initiator of the airflow. Such sounds generally remain voiced.[12]
Yeyi has a set of prenasalized ejectives like /ⁿtʼ, ᵑkʼ, ⁿtsʼ/.
In theInternational Phonetic Alphabet, ejectives are indicated with a "modifier letter apostrophe"⟨ʼ⟩, as in this article. A reversed apostrophe is sometimes used to represent light aspiration, as inArmenian linguistics ⟨pʻtʻkʻ⟩; this usage is obsolete in the IPA. In other transcription traditions (such as manyromanisations of Russian, where it is transliterating thesoft sign), the apostrophe representspalatalization: ⟨pʼ⟩ = IPA ⟨pʲ⟩. In someAmericanist traditions, an apostrophe indicates weak ejection and an exclamation mark strong ejection: ⟨k̓,k!⟩. In the IPA, the distinction might be written ⟨kʼ,kʼʼ⟩, but it seems that no language distinguishes degrees of ejection. Transcriptions of the Caucasian languages often utilize combining dots above or below a letter to indicate an ejective.
In alphabets using the Latin script, an IPA-like apostrophe for ejective consonants is common. However, there are other conventions. InHausa, the hooked letterƙ is used for/kʼ/. InZulu andXhosa, whose ejection is variable between speakers, plain consonant letters are used:p t k ts tsh kr for/pʼtʼkʼtsʼtʃʼkxʼ/. In some conventions forHaida andHadza, double letters are used:tt kk qq ttl tts for/tʼkʼqʼtɬʼtsʼ/ (Haida) andzz jj dl gg for/tsʼtʃʼc𝼆ʼkxʼ/ (Hadza).
A pattern can be observed wherein ejectives correlate geographically with mountainous regions.Everett (2013) argues that the geographic correlation between languages with ejectives and mountainous terrains is because of decreased air pressure making ejectives easier to produce, as well as the way ejectives help to reduce water vapor loss. The argument has been criticized as being based on aspurious correlation.[13][14][15]
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