In
phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
and
phonology
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
, nonexplosive stops are posited class of
non-pulmonic ("non-obstruent")
stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
s that lack the pressure build-up and burst release associated with pulmonic
stops, but also the laryngeal lowering of
implosive
Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in additi ...
stops. They are reported to occur in
Ikwere, an
Igboid (
Niger–Congo) language of
Nigeria
Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
.
Ikwere's two nonexplosive stops, transcribed as voiced and
pre-glottalized , correspond to
labial-velars and , respectively, in most other Igboid languages, and to
implosives
Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in additio ...
and in some varieties of
Igbo. Ikwere's stops resemble both, in that they are
velarized and have a non-pulmonic airstream mechanism.
References
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*
Plosives
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