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Dorsal consonant
Consonants like /k, w, x, g/ articulated with the back of the tongue
Consonants like /k, w, x, g/ articulated with the back of the tongue
Dorsal consonants are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum). They include the uvular, velar and, in some cases, alveolo-palatal and palatal consonants. They contrast with coronal consonants, articulated with the flexible front of the tongue, and laryngeal consonants, articulated in the pharyngeal cavity.
Function
The dorsum of the tongue can contact a broad region of the roof of the mouth, from the hard palate (palatal consonants), the flexible velum behind that (velar consonants), to the uvula at the back of the mouth cavity (uvular consonants). These distinctions are not clear cut, and sometimes finer gradations such as pre-palatal, pre-velar, and post-velar will be noted.
Because the tip of the tongue can curl back to also contact the hard palate for retroflex consonants (subapical-palatal), consonants produced by contact between the dorsum and the palate are sometimes called dorso-palatal.
Examples
| IPA symbol | Name of the consonant | Language | Example | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiced palatal nasal | Albanian | një | ||
| Voiced palatal fricative | Modern Greek | για | ||
| Voiceless palatal fricative | German | Reich | ||
| Voiced palatal approximant | English | *yellow* | ||
| Voiced velar nasal | ''si'''ng''''' | |||
| Voiced velar plosive | *garden* | |||
| Voiceless velar plosive | *cake* | |||
| Voiced velar fricative | Modern Greek | el (γόμα) | ||
| Voiceless velar fricative | Scottish English | ''lo'''ch''''' | ||
| Voiceless labio-velar approximant | *whine* | |||
| Voiced labio-velar approximant | RP English | *water* | ||
| Voiceless uvular plosive | Arabic | ar (قرآن) | ||
| Voiced uvular plosive | Persian | *Qom* (قم) | ||
| Voiced uvular fricative | ||||
| or approximant | French | Paris | ||
| Voiceless uvular fricative | German | Bach |
References
This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.
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