Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate
The voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represent this sound are ⟨t͡ɕ⟩, ⟨t͜ɕ⟩, ⟨c͡ɕ⟩ and ⟨c͜ɕ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are t_s\ and c_s\, though transcribing the stop component with ⟨c⟩ (c in X-SAMPA) is rare. The tie bar may be omitted, yielding ⟨tɕ⟩ or ⟨cɕ⟩ in the IPA and ts\ or cs\ in X-SAMPA. This affricate has a dedicated symbol U+02A8 ʨ LATIN SMALL LETTER TC DIGRAPH WITH CURL, which has been retired by the International Phonetic Association but is still used.
Neither [t] nor [c] are a completely narrow transcription of the stop component, which can be narrowly transcribed as [t̠ʲ] (retracted and palatalized [t]) or [c̟] (advanced [c]). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are t_-' or t_-_j and c_+, respectively. There is also a dedicated symbol ⟨ȶ⟩, which is not a part of the IPA. Therefore, narrow transcriptions of the voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant affricate include [t̠ʲɕ], [c̟ɕ] and [ȶɕ].
It occurs in languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Serbo-Croatian or Russian, and is the sibilant equivalent of the voiceless palatal affricate. U+107AB 𐞫 MODIFIER LETTER SMALL TC DIGRAPH WITH CURL is a superscript IPA letter.
Features
Features of the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate:
- Its manner of articulation is sibilant affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the air flow entirely, then directing it with the tongue to the sharp edge of the teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.
- Its place of articulation is alveolo-palatal. This means that:
- Its place of articulation is postalveolar, meaning that the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth in the area behind the alveolar ridge (the gum line).
- Its tongue shape is laminal, meaning that it is the tongue blade that contacts the roof of the mouth.
- It is heavily palatalized, meaning that the middle of the tongue is bowed and raised towards the hard palate.
- Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
- It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
- It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
- Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.