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An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. English has two affricate phonemes, /t͜ʃ/ and /d͜ʒ/, often spelled ch and j, respectively.

Examples

The English sounds spelled "ch" and "j" (broadly transcribed as and in the IPA), German and Italian z and Italian z are typical affricates, and sounds like these are fairly common in the world's languages, as are other affricates with similar sounds, such as those in Polish and Chinese. However, voiced affricates other than are relatively uncommon. For several places of articulation they are not attested at all.

Much less common are labiodental affricates, such as in German, Kinyarwanda and Izi, or velar affricates, such as in Tswana (written kg) or in High Alemannic Swiss German dialects. Worldwide, relatively few languages have affricates in these positions even though the corresponding stop consonants, and , are common or virtually universal. Also less common are alveolar affricates where the fricative release is lateral, such as the sound found in Nahuatl and Navajo. Some other Athabaskan languages, such as Dene Suline, have unaspirated, aspirated, and ejective series of affricates whose release may be dental, alveolar, postalveolar, or lateral: , , , , , , , , , , , and .

Notation

Affricates are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by a combination of two letters, one for the stop element and the other for the fricative element. In order to show that these are parts of a single consonant, a tie bar is generally used. The tie bar appears most commonly above the two letters, but may be placed under them if it fits better there, or simply because it is more legible. Thus:

⟨p͡f b͡v, t͡s d͡z, t͡ɬ d͡ɮ, t͡ʃ d͡ʒ, t͡ᶘ d͡ᶚ, t͡ɕ d͡ʑ, ʈ͡ʂ ɖ͡ʐ , k͡x⟩

or

⟨p͜f b͜v, t͜s d͜z, t͜ɬ d͜ɮ, t͜ʃ d͜ʒ, t͜ɕ d͜ʑ, ʈ͜ʂ ɖ͜ʐ , k͜x⟩.

A less common notation indicates the release of the affricate with a superscript:

⟨pᶠ bᵛ, tˢ dᶻ, t𐞛 d𐞞, tᶴ dᶾ, t𝿣 d𝿧, tᶝ dᶽ, tᶳ dᶼ, kˣ⟩

This is derived from the IPA convention of indicating other releases with a superscript. However, this convention is more typically used for a fricated release that is too brief to be considered a true affricate.

Though they are no longer standard IPA, ligatures are available in Unicode for the sibilant affricates, which remain in common use:

⟨ʦ ʣ, ʧ ʤ, 𝼜 𝼙, ʨ ʥ, ꭧ ꭦ⟩.

Approved for Unicode in 2024, per request from the IPA, are the remaining coronal affricates:

⟨, , , ⟩ for , , , .

Any of these notations can be used to distinguish an affricate from a sequence of a stop plus a fricative, which is contrastive in languages such as Polish. However, in languages where there is no such distinction, such as English or Turkish, a simple sequence of letters is commonly used, with no overt indication that they form an affricate.

In other phonetic transcription systems, such as the Americanist system, affricates may be transcribed with single letters. The affricate may be transcribed as ⟨c⟩ or ⟨¢⟩; as ⟨j⟩, ⟨ƶ⟩ or (older) ⟨ʒ⟩; as ⟨c⟩ or ⟨č⟩; as ⟨ǰ⟩, ⟨ǧ⟩ or (older) ⟨ǯ⟩; as ⟨ƛ⟩; and as ⟨λ⟩.

This also happens with phonemic transcription in IPA: and are sometimes transcribed with the symbols for the palatal stops, ⟨c⟩ and ⟨ɟ⟩, for example in the IPA Handbook.

Affricates vs. stop–fricative sequences

In some languages, affricates contrast phonemically with stop–fricative sequences:

• Polish affricate /t͡ʂ/ in czysta 'clean (f.)' versus stop–fricative /tʂ/ in trzysta 'three hundred'.
• Klallam affricate /t͡s/ in k'ʷə́nc 'look at me' versus stop–fricative /ts/ in k'ʷə́nts 'he looks at it'.

The exact phonetic difference varies between languages. In stop–fricative sequences, the stop has a release burst before the fricative starts; but in affricates, the fricative element is the release. Phonologically, stop–fricative sequences may have a syllable boundary between the two segments, but not necessarily.

In English, /ts/ and /dz/ (nuts, nods) are considered phonemically stop–fricative sequences. They often contain a morpheme boundary (for example, nuts = nut + s). The English affricate phonemes /t͡ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ/ do not contain morpheme boundaries.

The phonemic distinction in English between the affricate /t͡ʃ/ and the stop–fricative sequence /t.ʃ/ (found across syllable boundaries) can be observed by minimal pairs such as the following:

• worst shin /wɜː(ɹ)st.ʃɪn/ →
• worse chin /wɜː(ɹ)s.t͡ʃɪn/ →

In some accents of English, the /t/ in 'worst shin' debuccalizes to a glottal stop before /ʃ/.

Stop–fricatives can be distinguished acoustically from affricates by the rise time of the frication noise, which is shorter for affricates.

List of affricates

In the case of coronals, the symbols ⟨t, d⟩ are normally used for the stop portion of the affricate regardless of place. For example, ⟨t͡ʂ⟩ is commonly seen for ⟨ʈ͡ʂ⟩.

The exemplar languages are ones that have been reported to have these sounds, but in several cases, they may need confirmation.

Sibilant affricates

The Northwest Caucasian languages Abkhaz and Ubykh both contrast sibilant affricates at four places of articulation: alveolar, postalveolar, alveolo-palatal and retroflex. They also distinguish voiceless, voiced, and ejective affricates at each of these.

When a language has only one type of affricate, it is usually a sibilant; this is the case in e.g. Arabic (), most dialects of Spanish (), and Thai ().

Non-sibilant affricates

Lateral affricates

Trilled affricates

Pirahã and Wari' have a dental stop with bilabial trilled release .

Heterorganic affricates

Although most affricates are homorganic, Navajo and Chiricahua Apache have a heterorganic alveolar-velar affricate . Wari' and Pirahã have a voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate (see #Trilled affricates), Blackfoot has . Other heterorganic affricates are reported for Northern Sotho and other Bantu languages such as Phuthi, which has alveolar–labiodental affricates and , and Sesotho, which has bilabial–palatoalveolar affricates and . Djeoromitxi has and .

Phonation, coarticulation and other variants

The coronal and dorsal places of articulation attested as ejectives as well: . Several Khoisan languages such as Taa are reported to have voiced ejective affricates, but these are actually pre-voiced: . Affricates are also commonly aspirated: , murmured: , and prenasalized: (as in Hmong). Labialized, palatalized, velarized, and pharyngealized affricates are also common. Affricates may also have phonemic length, that is, affected by a chroneme, as in Italian and Karelian.

Phonological representation

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In phonology, affricates tend to behave similarly to stops, taking part in phonological patterns that fricatives do not. Kehrein (2002) analyzes phonetic affricates as phonological stops. A sibilant or lateral (and presumably trilled) stop can be realized phonetically only as an affricate and so might be analyzed phonemically as a sibilant or lateral stop. In that analysis, affricates other than sibilants and laterals are a phonetic mechanism for distinguishing stops at similar places of articulation (like more than one labial, coronal, or dorsal place). For example, Chipewyan has laminal dental vs. apical alveolar ; other languages may contrast velar with palatal and uvular . Affricates may also be a strategy to increase the phonetic contrast between aspirated or ejective and tenuis consonants.

According to Kehrein (2002), no language contrasts a non-sibilant, non-lateral affricate with a stop at the same place of articulation and with the same phonation and airstream mechanism, such as /t̪/ and /t̪θ/ or /k/ and /kx/.

In feature-based phonology, affricates are distinguished from stops by the feature .

Affrication

Affrication (sometimes called affricatization) is a sound change by which a consonant, usually a stop or fricative, changes into an affricate. Examples include:

• Proto-Germanic /k/ > Modern English /t͡ʃ/, as in chin (cf. German: Kinn: Anglo-Frisian palatalization)
• Proto-Semitic /ɡ/ > Standard Arabic /d͡ʒ/ in all positions, as in جمل /d͡ʒamal/ (jamal) 'camel' (cf. Aramaic: גמלא (gamlā'), Amharic: ግመል (gəmäl), and Hebrew: גמל (gamal)).
• Early Modern English /tj, dj/ > /t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ/ (yod-coalescence)
• /p, t, k/ > /pf, t͡s, kx/ in the High German consonant shift
• > before respectively in 16th-century Japanese
• > word-initially in Udmurt
• Polish /tʲ, dʲ/ > /t͡ɕ, d͡ʑ/

Pre-affrication

In rare instances, a fricative–stop contour may occur. This is the case in dialects of Scottish Gaelic that have velar frication where other dialects have pre-aspiration. For example, in the Harris dialect there is seachd 'seven' and ochd 'eight' (or , ). Richard Wiese argues this is the case for word-initial fricative-plosive sequences in German, and coined the term suffricate for such contours. Awngi has 2 suffricates /s͡t/ and /ʃ͡t/ according to some analyses.

See also

• Apical consonant
• Hush consonant
• Laminal consonant
• Index of phonetics articles

Notes

1. John Laver created the para-IPA letters ⟨ ᶘ ᶚ⟩ for the not-quite retroflex fricatives of Polish sz and ż; the affricates ⟨𝼜 𝼙⟩ are Polish cz and dż.

References

1. Roach, Peter (2009). "English Phonetics and Phonology Glassary" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on April 12, 2015.
2. For example, in Niesler, Thomas; Louw, Philippa; Roux, Justus (November 2005). "Phonetic analysis of Afrikaans, English, Xhosa and Zulu using South African speech databases". Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. 23 (4): 459–474. doi:10.2989/16073610509486401. ISSN 1607-3614. S2CID 7138676.
3. Unicode pipeline: L2/24-051
4. Gussmann, Edmund (2007), The Phonology of Polish, Oxford University Press, p. 7, ISBN 978-0-19-926747-7
5. Howell & Rosen (1983).
6. ^ Johnson (2003).
7. Mitani, Kitama & Sato (2006).
8. "Phoible 2.0 -". Archived from the original on 2021-02-04. Retrieved 2020-12-27.
9. Valenzuela, Márquez Pinedo & Maddieson (2001).
10. Labov, William (1966), The Social Stratification of English in New York City (PDF) (2nd ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 36–37, archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-08-24, retrieved 2014-06-27
11. Collins & Mees (2003), p. 302.
12. Warren, Paul; Bauer, Laurie (2004), "Maori English: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English, vol. 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 614–624, ISBN 3-11-017532-0
13. Gimson, Alfred Charles (2014), Cruttenden, Alan (ed.), Gimson's Pronunciation of English (8th ed.), Routledge, p. 172, ISBN 9781444183092
14. Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English 2: The British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 322–323, 372. ISBN 0-521-24224-X.
15. Zamponi, Raoul (1996). "Multiple sources of glottal stop in Raʔivavaean". Oceanic Linguistics. 35 (1): 6–20. doi:10.2307/3623028. JSTOR 3623028.
16. Edmondson, Jerold A.; Esling, John H.; Harris, Jimmy G. Supraglottal cavity shape, linguistic register, and other phonetic features of Somali (PDF) (Report). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-15. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
17. Collins & Mees (2003), p. 148.
18. Strand, Richard F. (2010). "Nurestâni Languages". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition. Archived from the original on 2016-11-06. Retrieved 2015-06-20.
19. Bessell, Nicola J. "Preliminary Notes on Some Pacific Northwest Coast Pharyngeals" (PDF). Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-06-05.
20. Hoijer & Opler (1938).
21. Young & Morgan (1987).
22. Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996).
23. McDonough (2003).
24. McDonough & Wood (2008).
25. Iskarous, McDonough & Whalen (2012).
26. Pires (1992).
27. Kehrein (2002), p. 1.
28. Hayes, Bruce (2009). Introductory Phonology. Blackwell. pp. 79–80. ISBN 978-1-4051-8411-3.
29. Takayama, Tomoaki (2015). "15– Historical Phonology". In Kubozono, Haruo (ed.). Handbook of Japanese Phonetics and Phonology. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 629–630. ISBN 9781614511984. Archived from the original on 2 May 2016. Retrieved 12 June 2015.
30. Csúcs, Sándor (2005). Die Rekonstruktion der permischen Grundsprache. Bibliotheca Uralica (in German). Vol. 13. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. p. 139. ISBN 963-05-8184-1.
31. Laver, John (1994). Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 374. ISBN 978-0-521-45031-7.
32. Harry van der Hulst & Nancy Ritter (2012: 175) The Syllable: Views and Facts. De Gruyter.
33. Joswig, Andreas (2010). The Phonology of Awngi (PDF). SIL Electronic Working Papers. SIL International.

Sources

• Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2003) , The Phonetics of English and Dutch (5th ed.), Leiden: Brill Publishers, ISBN 9004103406
• Hoijer, Harry; Opler, Morris E. (1938). Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache texts. The University of Chicago publications in anthropology; Linguistic series. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780598942005.
• Howell, Peter; Rosen, Stuart (March 1983). "Production and perception of rise time in the voiceless affricate/fricative distinction". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 73 (3): 976–984. Bibcode:1983ASAJ...73..976H. doi:10.1121/1.389023. ISSN 0001-4966. PMID 6841824.
• Iskarous, Khalil; McDonough, Joyce; Whalen, D. H. (2012-01-25). "A gestural account of the velar fricative in Navajo". Laboratory Phonology. 3 (1): 195–210. doi:10.1515/lp-2012-0011. ISSN 1868-6354. PMC 3994885. PMID 24765216.
• Johnson, Keith (2003). Acoustic and Auditory Phonetics (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1405101233.
• Kehrein, Wolfgang (2002). Phonological representation and phonetic phasing: affricates and laryngeals. Tübingen: De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110911633. ISBN 9783484304666.
• Ladefoged, P. (2006). A Course in Phonetics (5th ed.). Wadsworth. ISBN 978-1413006889.
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
• Maddieson, Ian (1984). Patterns of sounds. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-26536-3.
• McDonough, Joyce (2003). The Navajo Sound System. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. Vol. 55. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. doi:10.1007/978-94-010-0207-3. ISBN 978-1-4020-1351-5.
• McDonough, Joyce; Wood, Valerie (July 2008). "The stop contrasts of the Athabaskan languages". Journal of Phonetics. 36 (3): 427–449. doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2007.11.001.
• Mitani, Shigeki; Kitama, Toshihiro; Sato, Yu (September 2006). "Voiceless affricate/fricative distinction by frication duration and amplitude rise slope". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 120 (3): 1600–1607. Bibcode:2006ASAJ..120.1600M. doi:10.1121/1.2221390. ISSN 0001-4966. PMID 17004482.
• Pires, Nádia N. (1992). Estudo da gramática da língua Jeoromitxi (Jabuti) (MA thesis). Universidade Estadual de Campinas.
• Valenzuela, Pilar M.; Márquez Pinedo, Luis; Maddieson, Ian (2001), "Shipibo", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31 (2): 281–285, doi:10.1017/S0025100301002109, archived from the original on 2021-12-02, retrieved 2021-07-17
• Young, R.; Morgan, W. (1987). The Navajo Language. University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 9780826310149.

External links

• Affricates in English

v t e International Phonetic Alphabet (chart)
IPA topics IPA International Phonetic Association History of the alphabet Extensions for disordered speech (extIPA) Voice Quality Symbols (VoQS) Journal of the IPA (JIPA) Special topics Cursive forms Case variants Obsolete and nonstandard symbols Naming conventions Sinological extensions World Orthography IPA chart for English dialects Encodings ASCII encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode IPA number IPA Braille
Consonants Pulmonic consonants Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Laryngeal Manner ↓ Bi­labial Labio­dental Linguo­labial Dental Alveolar Post­alveolar Retro­flex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn­geal/epi­glottal Glottal Nasal m̥ m ɱ̊ ɱ n̼ n̥ n ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ̥ ɴ Plosive p b p̪ b̪ t̼ d̼ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Sibilant affricate ts dz t̠ʃ d̠ʒ tʂ dʐ tɕ dʑ Non-sibilant affricate pɸ bβ p̪f b̪v t̪θ d̪ð tɹ̝̊ dɹ̝ t̠ɹ̠̊˔ d̠ɹ̠˔ cç ɟʝ kx ɡɣ qχ ɢʁ ʡʜ ʡʢ ʔh Sibilant fricative s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ̼ ð̼ θ ð θ̠ ð̠ ɹ̠̊˔ ɹ̠˔ ɻ̊˔ ɻ˔ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ h ɦ Approximant ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ ʔ̞ Tap/flap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ̼ ɾ̥ ɾ ɽ̊ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̆ Trill ʙ̥ ʙ r̥ r ɽ̊r̥ ɽr ʀ̥ ʀ ʜ ʢ Lateral affricate tɬ dɮ tꞎ d𝼅 c𝼆 ɟʎ̝ k𝼄 ɡʟ̝ Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ꞎ 𝼅 𝼆 ʎ̝ 𝼄 ʟ̝ Lateral approximant l ɭ ʎ ʟ ʟ̠ Lateral tap/flap ɺ̥ ɺ 𝼈̥ 𝼈 ʎ̆ ʟ̆ IPA help  audio full chart template Symbols to the right in a cell are voiced, to the left are voiceless. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible. Non-pulmonic consonants BL LD D A PA RF P V U EG Ejective Stop pʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʡʼ Affricate p̪fʼ t̪θʼ tsʼ t̠ʃʼ tʂʼ tɕʼ kxʼ qχʼ Fricative ɸʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ Lateral affricate tɬʼ c𝼆ʼ k𝼄ʼ q𝼄ʼ Lateral fricative ɬʼ Click (top: velar; bottom: uvular) Tenuis kʘ qʘ kǀ qǀ kǃ qǃ k𝼊 q𝼊 kǂ qǂ Voiced ɡʘ ɢʘ ɡǀ ɢǀ ɡǃ ɢǃ ɡ𝼊 ɢ𝼊 ɡǂ ɢǂ Nasal ŋʘ ɴʘ ŋǀ ɴǀ ŋǃ ɴǃ ŋ𝼊 ɴ𝼊 ŋǂ ɴǂ ʞ   Tenuis lateral kǁ qǁ Voiced lateral ɡǁ ɢǁ Nasal lateral ŋǁ ɴǁ Implosive Voiced ɓ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ʛ Voiceless ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ᶑ̊ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥ IPA help  audio full chart template Co-articulated consonants Nasal n͡m Labial–alveolar ɳ͡m Labial–retroflex ŋ͡m Labial–velar Plosive t͡pd͡b Labial–alveolar ʈ͡pɖ͡b Labial–retroflex k͡pɡ͡b Labial–velar q͡ʡ Uvular–epiglottal q͡p Labial–uvular Fricative/approximant ɥ̊ɥ Labial–palatal ʍw Labial–velar ɧ Sj-sound (variable) Lateral approximant ɫ Velarized alveolar Implosive ɠ̊͜ɓ̥ ɠ͡ɓ Labial–velar Ejective t͡pʼ Labial–alveolar IPA help full chart template Other Nasal labial–velar approximant Nasal palatal approximant Voiceless bidental fricative Voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop Voiceless nasal glottal approximant
Vowels Front Central Back Close i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u Near-close ɪ ʏ ʊ Close-mid e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o Mid e̞ ø̞ ə ɤ̞ o̞ Open-mid ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ Near-open æ ɐ Open a ɶ ä ɑ ɒ IPA help  audio full chart template Legend: unrounded • rounded

• Manner of articulation
• Affricates