 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Peripheral consonant" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(October 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
InAustralian linguistics, theperipheral consonants are anatural class encompassing consonantsarticulated at the extremes of the mouth:labials (lip) andvelars (soft palate). That is, they are the non-coronal consonants (palatal,dental,alveolar, andpostalveolar). InAustralian languages, these consonants pattern together bothphonotactically andacoustically. InArabic andMaltesephilology, themoon letters transcribe non-coronal consonants, but they do not form a natural class.
| Bilabial | Velar | |
|---|---|---|
| Stop | p | k |
| Nasal | m | ŋ |
| Approximant | w | |
Australian languages typically favour peripheral consonants word- and syllable-initially, and they are not allowed or common word- and syllable-finally, unlike theapicals.
In the extinctMartuthunira, the peripheral stops/p/ and/k/ shared similarallophony. Whereas the other stops could be voiced between vowels or following a nasal, the peripherals were usually voiceless.