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Inlinguistics, aliquid consonant or simplyliquid is any of a class ofconsonants that consists ofrhotics andvoicedlateral approximants, which are also sometimes described as "R-like sounds" and "L-like sounds". The wordliquid seems to be acalque of the Ancient Greek wordὑγρός (hygrós'moist'), initially used by grammarianDionysius Thrax to describe Greeksonorants.
Liquid consonants are more prone to be part ofconsonant clusters and of thesyllable nucleus. Their thirdformants are generally non-predictable based on the first two formants. Another important feature is their complexarticulation, which makes them a hard consonant class to study with precision and the last consonants to be produced by children during theirphonological development. They are also more likely to undergo certain types ofphonological changes such asassimilation,dissimilation andmetathesis.
Most languages have at least one liquid in theirphonemic inventory. English has two,/l/ and/ɹ/.
The grammarianDionysius Thrax used theAncient Greek wordὑγρός (hygrós,transl. moist) to describe thesonorant consonants ([l,r,m,n]) ofclassical Greek. It is assumed that the term referred to their changing or inconsistent (or "fluid") effect onmeter in classical Greek verse when they occur as the second member of aconsonant cluster.[1] This word wascalqued intoLatin asliquidus (possibly because of a mistranslation) and this calque has been retained in the Western European phonetic tradition.
In thesonority hierarchy, liquids are considered the most sonorous sounds after vowels and glides,[2] with laterals considered to be less sonorous than rhotics.[3] This explains why they are more likely to be part of consonant clusters than other consonants (excluding glides), and to followobstruents in initialconsonant clusters and precede them in final consonant clusters.[4]
Liquids also hold this position in the hierarchy of syllable peaks,[4] which means that liquids are theoretically more likely to besyllabic (or, in other words, be part of asyllable nucleus) than any other consonants,[5] although some studies show that syllabic nasals are overall more favoured.[4] ThusCzech,Slovak and other Slavic languages allow their liquid consonants/l/ and/r/ to be the center of their syllables – as witnessed by the classictonguetwisterstrč prst skrz krk "push (your) finger through (your) throat." Additionally, Slovak also has long versions of these syllabic consonants, ŕ and ĺ, e.g.:kĺb [kɫ̩ːp] 'joint',vŕba [ˈvr̩ːba] 'willow',škvŕn [ʃkvr̩ːn] '(of) spots'. This is also true forGeneral American English (see the wordsbarrel andanchor) andother English accents.
Sequences of anobstruent and a liquid consonant are often ambiguous as far assyllabification is concerned. In these cases, whether the two consonants are part of the same syllable or not heavily depends on the individual language, and closely related languages can behave differently (such as Icelandic and Faroese).[1] In Latin and Ancient Greek, obstruent + liquid consonant clusters (known asmuta cum liquida)[3] supposedly were ambiguous in this sense, and as such were often used to manipulate meter.[1]
Acoustically, liquids seem to have a thirdformant of unexpected value when compared to the first and second formants. This contrasts with non-liquidapproximants, whose third formant value is expected based on the first two formants.[6]
Inarticulatory phonetics, liquids are described ascontrolledgestures,[7] which are slower and require more precise tongue movement during the "homing phase", when the tongue adjusts towards the place of articulation of the consonant.[8] Due to the fact that babies preferballistic gestures, which rely on the propelling motion of the jaw, liquids usually occur later in a child'sphonological development,[9][10] and they are more likely to be deleted in consonant clusters before the age of three.[11][12] Liquids have also been described as consonants involving "complex lingual geometries."[13]
To better determine the full range of articulatory and acoustic characteristics of liquids, the use ofultrasound paired with audio recordings is increasing. This is due to this consonant group being difficult to analyse on a purely auditory base.[13]
Liquids seem to be more or less subjected to certain sound changes or phonological processes than other consonants. On an auditory level, liquid consonants resemble each other, which is likely the reason they undergo or triggerassimilation,dissimilation andmetathesis.[14]
Cross-linguistically, liquids tend to be more prone tometathesis than other consonants,[15] especially long-distance metathesis.[16]
In Spanish, a frequent example is the behaviour of /r/ and /l/:
In English,comfortable is frequently pronounced /ˈkʌmf.tɚ.bəl/ in rhotic varieties, even though its stem,comfort, is pronounced /ˈkʌm.fɚt/, with the rhotic /ɹ/ in its original position.
Liquid consonants can also undergoassimilation: compareItalianparlare "to speak" withSicilianparrari. This phenomenon, which is not so common worldwide, is attested inFinnish: e.g., theroottul- "to come" combined with thepast participle suffix -nut,yields the surface formtullut. This is one of the reasonslong liquids are common in Finnish.[17]
A specific form of liquid assimilation, liquidharmony, is present is some languages. In Sundanese, some morphemes have two different realisations depending on what liquid is present in the root.[16]
Liquids are also prone todissimilation when they occur in sequence.[15] For example,Old Italiancolonnello "colonel" is borrowed intoMiddle French ascoronnel, which is in turned loaned into English ascolonel, with an orthography inspired by Italian but with the /ˈkɚnəl/ or /ˈkɜːnel/ pronunciation with the rhoticr, which is absent in writing.
Epenthesis, or the addition of sounds, is common in environments where liquids are present, especiallyconsonant clusters. The epenthetic sound can be a vowel or a consonant.[15] For example, the genitive of theAncient Greek nounἀνήρanḗr "man" isἀνδρόςandrós, with the insertion of a [d] sound between anasal consonant and the liquid [r]. Another example is theIrish wordbolg "belly", usually pronounced with an epentheticschwa[ə] after the liquid[lˠ]:[ˈbˠɔlˠəg].
Liquids can often be the result oflenition,[15] the change of a consonant towards characteristics that are typical of vowels, making it "weaker". They are also likely to becomevowels orglides, a process known as vocalisation.[18] See, for example, the pronunciation of Spanish/ɾ/ as[j] in theCibao region of theDominican Republic at the end of a syllable:standard Spanish/muˈxeɾ/ is optionally pronounced as[muˈxej] inCibaeño Spanish.[6]
According to a survey by linguistIan Maddieson, most languages have one to three liquids (with systems of two liquids being the most common) and they are usuallydental oralveolar.[14] Liquid consonants are also rarelygeminated cross-linguistically.[14]
Many languages, such asJapanese,Korean, orPolynesian languages (see below), have a single liquidphoneme that has both lateral and rhoticallophones.[19]
English has two liquid phonemes, one lateral,/l/ and one rhotic,/ɹ/, exemplified in the wordsled andred.
Many other European languages have one lateral and one rhotic phoneme. Some, such asGreek,Italian andSerbo-Croatian, have more than two liquid phonemes. All three languages have the set/l/,/ʎ/,/r/, with two laterals and one rhotic. Similarly, theIberian languages contrast four liquid phonemes./l/,/ʎ/,/ɾ/, and a fourth phoneme that is analveolar trill in most Iberian languages except for many varieties ofPortuguese, where it is auvular trill or fricative (also, the majority of Spanish speakers lack/ʎ/ and use the central/ʝ/ instead). Some European languages, for exampleRussian andIrish, contrast apalatalized lateral–rhotic pair with an unpalatalized (orvelarized) set (e.g./lʲ//rʲ//l//r/ in Russian).
Elsewhere in the world, two liquids of the types mentioned above remains the most common attribute of a language's consonant inventory except in North America and Australia. A majority ofindigenous North American languages do not have rhotics at all and there is a wide variety oflateral sounds, though most areobstruent laterals rather than liquids. Mostindigenous Australian languages, in contrast, are very rich in liquids, with some having as many as seven distinct liquids. They typically include dental, alveolar, retroflex and palatal laterals, and as many as three rhotics.
On the other side, there are many indigenous languages in theAmazon Basin and eastern North America, as well as a few in Asia and Africa, with no liquids.
Polynesian languages typically have only one liquid, which may be either a lateral or a rhotic. Non-PolynesianOceanic languages usually have both/l/ and/r/, occasionally more (e.g.Araki has/l/,/ɾ/,/r/) or less (e.g.Mwotlap has only/l/).Hiw is unusual in having aprestoppedvelar lateral/ᶢʟ/ as its only liquid.[20]
