Voiced palatal lateral fricative

Voiced palatal lateral fricative
ʎ̝
IPA number	157 429
Encoding
X-SAMPA	L_r

The voiced palatal lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʎ̝⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is L_r.

It is not known to occur as a phoneme in any language.

Features

Features of the voiced palatal lateral fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.

• Its place of articulation is palatal, which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised to the hard palate.

• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.

• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.

• It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.

• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Italian	Many accents[1]	figlio	[ˈfiʎ̝ːo]	'son'	Approximant [ʎ] in other accents. See Italian phonology
Jebero[2]		[iˈʎ̝apa]		'shotgun'	Dentoalveolo-palatal. Occasional allophone of /ʎ/; only lightly fricated.[2]

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

References

1. Ashby (2011:64): "(...) in a large number of Italian accents, there is considerable friction involved in the pronunciation of [ʎ], creating a voiced palatal lateral fricative (for which there is no established IPA symbol)."
2. Valenzuela & Gussenhoven (2013), p. 101.

Bibliography

• Ashby, Patricia (2011), Understanding Phonetics, Understanding Language series, Routledge, ISBN 978-0340928271
• Valenzuela, Pilar M.; Gussenhoven, Carlos (2013), "Shiwilu (Jebero)" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (1): 97–106, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000370