Ejective consonant

{{Manner of articulation}}{{IPA chart non-pulmonic consonants with audio}} In [[phonetics]], '''ejective consonants''' are [[voiceless]] [[consonants]] that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the [[glottis]]. In the [[phonology]] of a particular [[language]], ejectives may contrast with [[aspiration (phonetics)|aspirated]] or [[tenuis consonant]]s. Additionally, some languages have sonorants with creaky voice that pattern with ejectives while other languages have ejectives that pattern with implosives—this has led to phonologists positing a phonological class of ''glottalized'' consonants (see [[glottalic consonant]] and below for further discussion). ==Description== In producing an ejective, the [[stylohyoid muscle]] and [[digastric muscle]] contract—causing the [[hyoid bone]] and the connected glottis to raise—while the forward articulation (at the velum in the case of {{IPA|[kʼ]}}) is held, raising air pressure greatly in the mouth, so that when the oral articulators separate, there is a dramatic burst of air. The [[Adam's apple]] may be seen moving when the sound is pronounced. In the languages where they are more obvious, ejectives are often described as sounding like "spat" consonants; but ejectives are often quite weak and, in some contexts, and in some languages, are easy to mistake for tenuis or even voiced plosives. These weakly ejective articulations are sometimes called ''intermediates'' in older American linguistic literature and are notated with different phonetic symbols: {{IPA|[C!]}} = strongly ejective, {{IPA|[Cʼ]}} = weakly ejective. Strong and weak ejectives have not been found to be contrastive in any language. In strict, technical terms, ejectives are [[Initiation (phonetics)|glottalic egressive]] consonants. The most common ejective is {{IPA|[kʼ]}}, not because it is easier to produce than other ejectives like {{IPA|[tʼ]}} or {{IPA|[pʼ]}} (it isn't) but because the auditory distinction between {{IPA|[kʼ]}} and {{IPA|[k]}} is greater than with other ejectives and voiceless consonants of the same place of articulation. In proportion to the frequency of [[uvular consonant]]s, {{IPA|[qʼ]}} is even more common, as would be expected from the very small oral cavity used to pronounce a [[voiceless uvular plosive]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2009}} {{IPA|[pʼ]}}, on the other hand, is quite rare. This is the opposite pattern to what is found in the [[implosive consonant]]s, in which the bilabial is common and the velar is rare. Ejective fricatives are rare for presumably the same reason: with the air escaping from the mouth while the pressure is being raised, like inflating a leaky bicycle tire, it is harder to distinguish the resulting sound as salient as a {{IPA|[kʼ]}}. ==Occurrence in languages== Ejectives occur in about 20 % of the world's languages. Ejectives that phonemically contrast with pulmonic consonants occur in about 15 % of languages around the world. They are extremely common in northwest North America, and frequently occur throughout the western parts of both North and South America. They are also common in eastern and southern Africa. In Eurasia, the [[Caucasus]] forms an island of ejective languages. Elsewhere they are rare. Language families which distinguish ejective consonants include all three Caucasian families ([[Northwest Caucasian languages|Abkhaz–Adyghe]], [[Northeast Caucasian languages|Nakho-Dagestanian]] and [[South Caucasian languages|Kartvelian]] ([[Georgian language|Georgian]])); the [[Athabaskan languages|Athabaskan]], [[Siouan languages|Siouan]] and [[Salishan languages|Salishan]] families of North America, along with the many diverse families of the Pacific Northwest from central [[California]] to [[British Columbia]]; the [[Mayan languages|Mayan]] family and [[Aymara language|Aymara]]; the southern varieties of [[Quechua languages|Quechua]] ([[Qusqu-Qullaw]]); the [[Afro-Asiatic languages|Afro-Asiatic]] family (notably most of the [[Cushitic]] and [[Omotic]] languages, [[Hausa language|Hausa]] and [[South Semitic]] languages like [[Amharic language|Amharic]] and [[Tigrinya]]) and a few [[Nilo-Saharan languages]]; [[Sandawe language|Sandawe]], [[Hadza language|Hadza]], and the [[Khoisan languages|Khoisan]] families of southern Africa. Among the scattered languages with ejectives elsewhere are [[Itelmen language|Itelmen]] of the [[Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages]] and [[Yapese language|Yapese]] of the [[Austronesian languages|Austronesian family]]. According to the [[glottalic theory]], the [[Proto-Indo-European language]] had a series of ejectives, although no attested Indo-European language retained these sounds; nevertheless, ejectives are found in the Indo-European [[Ossetic language|Ossetic]] and Eastern [[Armenian language|Armenian]]; both have acquired ejectives under the influence of the nearby Caucasian language families. It had once been predicted that both ejectives and implosives would not be found in the same language, but this is now shown to be incorrect, both being found phonemically at several points of articulation in at least the Nilo-Saharan languages [[Gumuz language|Gumuz]], [[Me'en language|Me'en]], and [[Twampa language|Twampa]]. In addition, a number of [[Lowland East Cushitic languages|East Cushitic languages]] have a series of ejective consonants and a single [[voiced retroflex implosive]].{{Dubious|date=January 2010}}{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}} The fictional [[Na'vi language|language]] of the [[Na'vi]], seen and heard in the film ''[[Avatar (2009 film)|Avatar]]'', distinguishes ejective consonants from plosives. ==Types of ejectives== The vast majority of ejective consonants noted in the world's languages consists of [[Stop consonant|stop]]s or [[affricate]]s, and all ejective consonants are [[obstruent]]s. {{IPA|[kʼ]}} is the most common ejective, and {{IPA|[qʼ]}} is common among languages which have [[uvular consonant|uvulars]], {{IPA|[tʼ]}} less so, and {{IPA|[pʼ]}} is uncommon. Among affricates, {{IPA|[tsʼ], [tʃʼ], [tɬʼ]}} are all quite common, and {{IPA|[kxʼ]}} is not unusual (and is particularly common among the [[Khoisan languages]]), which is surprising since non-ejective {{IPA|[kx]}} is not a common sound. A few languages utilise ejective fricatives: in some dialects of [[Hausa language|Hausa]], the standard affricate {{IPA|[tsʼ]}} is a fricative {{IPA|[sʼ]}}; [[Ubykh language|Ubykh]] (Northwest Caucasian, now extinct) had an ejective lateral fricative {{IPA|[ɬʼ]}}; and the related [[Kabardian language|Kabardian]] also has ejective labiodental and alveolopalatal fricatives, {{IPA|[fʼ], [ʃʼ], and [ɬʼ]}}. [[Tlingit language|Tlingit]] is an extreme case, with ejective alveolar, lateral, velar, and uvular fricatives, {{IPA|[sʼ], [ɬʼ], [xʼ], [xʷʼ], [χʼ], [χʷʼ]}}; it may be the only language with the latter. [[Totonacan languages|Upper Necaxa Totonac]] is unusual and perhaps unique in that it has ejective fricatives (alveolar, lateral, and postalveolar {{IPA|[sʼ], [ʃʼ], [ɬʼ]}}) but completely lacks ejective stops or affricates (Beck 2006). Other languages with ejective fricatives are [[Yuchi language|Yuchi]], which in some sources is analyzed as having {{IPA|[ɸʼ], [sʼ], [ʃʼ], and [ɬʼ]}} (note this is not the analysis of the Wikipedia article), [[Keresan languages|Keres dialects]], with {{IPA|[sʼ], [ʂʼ] and [ɕʼ]}} {{Citation needed|date=September 2010}}, and [[Lakota language|Lakota]], with {{IPA|[sʼ], [ʃʼ], and [xʼ]}} {{citation needed|date=November 2011}}. [[Amharic]] is interpreted by many as having an ejective fricative {{IPA|[sʼ]}}, at least historically, but it has been also analyzed as now being a sociolinguistic variant (Takkele Taddese 1992). Strangely, although an ejective retroflex stop is easy to make and quite distinctive in sound, it is very rare. Retroflex ejective stops and affricates, {{IPA|[ʈʼ, ʈʂʼ]}}, are reported from [[Yawelmani language|Yawelmani]] and other [[Yokutsan languages|Yokuts languages]], as well as [[Tolowa language|Tolowa]], [[Keresan languages|Keresan]] (with only retroflex affricates), and [[Gwich'in language|Gwich'in]]; however, the retroflex ejective affricate is also found in most [[Northwest Caucasian languages]]. There are no voiced ejectives: the complete closing of the glottis required to form an ejective makes voicing impossible. When ejectives become voiced, the lose that glottalization; this occurs allophonically in [[Blin language|Blin]] (modal voice) and [[Kabardian language|Kabardian]] (creaky voice), was a historical sound change independently in [[Veinakh languages|Veinakh]] and [[Lezgic languages|Lezgic]] in the Caucasus, and has been postulated by the [[glottalic theory]] for Indo-European. Similarly, ejective [[sonorant]]s don't occur. When sonorants are written with an apostrophe, as if they were ejective, they actually involve a different airstream mechanism: they are [[Glottalic consonant|glottalized]] consonants and vowels, where glottalization interrupts an otherwise normal pulmonic airstream, somewhat like English ''uh-uh'' (either vocalic or nasal) pronounced as a single sound. ==IPA transcription== In the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]], ejectives are indicated by writing a [[stop consonant]] with a "modifier letter apostrophe" ({{unicode|'''ʼ'''}}). Note that a reversed apostrophe is sometimes used to represent aspiration, as in [[Armenian language|Armenian]] linguistics {{IPA|[p‘ t‘ k‘]}}; this usage is obsolete in the IPA. In other transcription traditions, the apostrophe represents [[palatalization]], e.g., {{IPA|[pʼ]}} = IPA {{IPA|[pʲ]}}. ==See also== *[[Glottalic consonant]] *[[List of phonetics topics]] *[[Tlingit language]] *[[Bilabial ejective]] pʼ *[[Alveolar ejective]] tʼ *[[Retroflex ejective]] ʈʼ *[[Velar ejective]] kʼ *[[Uvular ejective]] qʼ *[[Dental ejective fricative]] θʼ *[[Alveolar ejective fricative]] sʼ *[[Alveolar ejective affricate]] tsʼ *[[Alveolar lateral ejective affricate]] tɬʼ *[[Postalveolar ejective affricate]] tʃʼ *[[Retroflex ejective affricate]] tʂʼ *[[Palatal lateral ejective affricate]] cʎ̝ʼ *[[Velar ejective affricate]] kxʼ *[[Velar lateral ejective affricate]] kʟ̝̊ʼ ==External links== *[http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/nonpulmonics.html Listen to Ejective Consonant] *[http://wals.info/feature/7?tg_format=map&v1=cfff&v2=c00d&v3=cd00&v4=dff0&v5=c909&v6=d00d&v7=dd00&v8=d909 WALS map] of languages with ejectives (blue and purple) {{IPA navigation}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Ejective Consonant}}