The voiced velar approximant is a type of
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
al sound, used in some
spoken language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
s. The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...
that represents this sound is , and the equivalent
X-SAMPA symbol is
M\.
The consonant is absent in English, but may be approximated by making but with the tongue body lowered or but with the lips apart. The voiced velar approximant can in many cases be considered the
semivocalic counterpart of the
close back unrounded vowel . and with the non-syllabic diacritic are used in different
transcription systems to represent the same sound.
In some languages, such as
Spanish, the voiced velar approximant is an
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plos ...
of – see
below.
The symbol for the velar approximant originates from , but with a vertical line. Compare and for the
labio-palatal approximant.
Features
Features of the voiced velar approximant:
The most common type of this approximant is ''glide'' or ''semivowel''. The term ''glide'' emphasizes the characteristic of movement (or 'glide') of from the vowel position to a following vowel position. The term ''semivowel'' emphasizes that, although the sound is vocalic in nature, it is not 'syllabic' (it does not form the nucleus of a syllable). For a description of the ''approximant consonant'' variant used e.g. in Spanish, see below.
Occurrence
Pre-velar
Voiced velar bunched approximant
Some languages have a velar approximant that is produced with the body of the tongue bunched up at the velum and simultaneous
pharyngealization. This gives rise to a type of
retroflex
A retroflex () or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consona ...
resonance resembling . The
extension to the IPA recommends the use of the "centralized" diacritic combined with the IPA sign for the English
alveolar approximant
The voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants are types of consonantal sounds used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the alveolar and postalveolar approximants is , a lowercase lett ...
(as in ) to distinguish the bunched realization from the prototypical apical , which may be specified as . Typically, the diacritic is omitted, so that the sound is transcribed simply with or (in broader transcriptions: ), as if it were a
coronal consonant.
In Dutch, this type of ''r'' is called 'Gooi ''r. It is named after
het Gooi, a region of the Netherlands where
Hilversum
Hilversum () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland, Netherlands. Located in the heart of the Gooi, it is ...
(the main centre for television and radio broadcasting) is located.
Features
Features of the voiced velar bunched approximant:
The body of the tongue is bunched up at the velum, rather than just approaching it as it is the case with the prototypical velar approximant.
Occurrence
Relation with and
Some languages have a voiced velar approximant that is unspecified for rounding, and therefore cannot be considered the semivocalic equivalent of either or its rounded counterpart . Examples of such languages are
Catalan,
Galician and
Spanish, in which the approximant ''consonant'' (not ''semivowel'') unspecified for rounding appears as an allophone of .
Eugenio Martínez Celdrán describes the voiced velar approximant consonant as follows:
There is a parallel problem with transcribing the
palatal approximant
The voiced palatal approximant is a type of consonant used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ; the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j, and in the Americanist phonetic notation i ...
.
The symbol may not display properly in all browsers. In that case, should be substituted. In broader transcriptions,
[See e.g. .] the
lowering diacritic may be omitted altogether, so that the symbol is rendered , i.e. as if it represented the corresponding fricative.
See also
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Index of phonetics articles
Notes
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Voiced Velar Approximant
Velar consonants
Pulmonic consonants
Voiced oral consonants
Central consonants