Homorganic consonants
Encyclopedia
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...
term for consonant sounds which are articulated in the same position or place of articulation
Place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator , and a passive location...
in the mouth, such as [m], [p], [b] , or [t], [d], [s], [z], [n], [l] . Consonants which are not articulated in the same place are called heterorganic.
Articulatory position
Descriptive phonetic classification relies on the relationships between a number of technical terms which describe the way sounds are made; and one of the relevant elements involves that place at which a specific sound is formed and voiced. In articulatory phoneticsArticulatory phonetics
The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics. In studying articulation, phoneticians explain how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of different physiological structures....
, the specific "place of articulation" or "point of articulation" of a consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
is that point of contact, where an obstruction
Obstruction
Obstruction may refer to:* Obstruction theory, in mathematics* Obstruction of justice, the crime of interfering with law enforcement* Obstructing government administration* Propagation path obstruction** Single Vegetative Obstruction Model-Medical:...
occurs in the vocal tract
Vocal tract
The vocal tract is the cavity in human beings and in animals where sound that is produced at the sound source is filtered....
between an active (moving) articulator (typically some part of the tongue) and a passive (stationary) articulator (typically some part of the roof of the mouth). Along with the manner of articulation
Manner of articulation
In linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound. Often the concept is only used for the production of consonants, even though the movement of the articulars will also greatly alter the resonant properties of the...
and phonation
Phonation
Phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, phonation is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the definition used among those who study laryngeal anatomy and physiology...
, this gives the consonant its distinctive sound.
Similar articulatory position
Consonants which have similar, near-equivalent or the same place of articulation, such as the alveolar sounds -- n, t, d, s, z, l -- in EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, are said to be homorganic.
Homorganic nasal rule
A homorganic nasal rule is a case where the point of articulation of the initial sound is assimilated by the last sound in a prefix. An example of this rule is found in Yoruba languageYoruba language
Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...
, where ba, "hide", becomes mba, "is hiding", while sun, "sleep", becomes nsun, "is sleeping".
Consonant clustering
Two or more consonant sounds may appear sequentially linked or clustered as either identical consonants or homorganic consonants which differ slightly in the manner of articulation -- as when the first consonant is a fricative and the second is a plosive.In some languages a syllable-initial homorganic sequence of a stop and a nasal is quite uncontroversially treated as a sequence of two separate segments; and the separate status of the stop and the nasal is quite clear. In Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, the stop + nasal sequences are just one of the possible types amongst many different syllable-initial consonant sequences which occur. In English, nasal + stop sequences within a morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
must be homorganic.
Consonant length
In languages as diverse as ArabicArabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
and Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
, there is a phonological contrast between long and short consonants, which are distinguishable from consonant clusters. In phonetics
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...
, gemination
Gemination
In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
happens when a spoken consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
.
Consonant length is distinctive in some languages. In Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, for example, 来た(kita) means 'came; arrived', while 切った(kitta) means 'cut; sliced'. The romanization or transliteration of the sound of each Japanese word produces the misleading impression of a doubled-consonant.
See also
- Manner of articulationManner of articulationIn linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound. Often the concept is only used for the production of consonants, even though the movement of the articulars will also greatly alter the resonant properties of the...
- Relative articulationRelative articulationIn descriptions of phonetics and phonology, the manner and place of articulation of a speech sound may be specified relative to some point of comparison...
- List of phonetics topics
- Hepburn romanizationHepburn romanizationThe is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary, published in 1887. The system was originally proposed by the in 1885...