The voiced alveolar 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. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...

al sound used in some spoken

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

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 standardized representation ...

that represents the alveolar and postalveolar

approximants Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...

is , a lowercase letter ''r'' rotated 180 degrees. The equivalent

X-SAMPA The Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (X-SAMPA) is a variant of SAMPA developed in 1995 by John C. Wells, professor of phonetics at University College London. It is designed to unify the individual language SAMPA alphabets, a ...

symbol is r\. The most common sound represented by the letter ''r'' in English is the voiced postalveolar approximant, pronounced a little more back and transcribed more precisely in IPA as , but is often used for convenience in its place. For further ease of typesetting, English phonemic transcriptions might use the symbol even though this symbol represents the

alveolar trill The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...

in phonetic transcription. The bunched or molar r sounds remarkably similar to the postalveolar approximant and can be described as a ''voiced labial pre-velar approximant with tongue-tip retraction''. It can be transcribed in IPA as or .

Features

Features of the voiced alveolar approximant:

Occurrence

Alveolar

Postalveolar

As an allophone of other rhotic sounds, occurs in Edo,

Fula Fula may refer to: *Fula people (or Fulani, Fulɓe) *Fula language (or Pulaar, Fulfulde, Fulani) **The Fula variety known as the Pulaar language **The Fula variety known as the Pular language **The Fula variety known as Maasina Fulfulde *Al-Fula ...

, Murrinh-patha, and Palauan.

Notes

References

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External links

* {{Authority control Alveolar consonants Pulmonic consonants Oral consonants Central consonants