The airflow is not completely stopped in the production of fricative consonants. In other words, the airflow experiences
friction.
Sibilants •
voiceless coronal sibilant, as in English
sip •
voiced coronal sibilant, as in English
zip •
voiceless dental sibilant •
voiced dental sibilant •
voiceless apical sibilant •
voiced apical sibilant • voiceless predorsal sibilant (
laminal, with tongue tip at lower teeth) • voiced predorsal sibilant (laminal) •
voiceless postalveolar sibilant (laminal) •
voiced postalveolar sibilant (laminal) •
voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant (
domed, partially palatalized), as in English
ship •
voiced palato-alveolar sibilant (domed, partially palatalized), as the
si in English vi
sion •
voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant (laminal, palatalized) •
voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant (laminal, palatalized) •
voiceless retroflex sibilant (
apical or
subapical) •
voiced retroflex sibilant (apical or subapical) All
sibilants are
coronal, but may be
dental,
alveolar,
postalveolar, or
palatal (
retroflex) within that range. However, at the postalveolar place of articulation, the tongue may take several shapes: domed,
laminal, or
apical, and each of these is given a separate symbol and a separate name. Prototypical retroflexes are
subapical and palatal, but they are usually written with the same symbol as the apical postalveolars. The alveolars and dentals may also be either apical or laminal, but this difference is indicated with diacritics rather than with separate symbols.
Central non-sibilant fricatives •
voiceless bilabial fricative •
voiced bilabial fricative •
voiceless labiodental fricative, as in English
fine •
voiced labiodental fricative, as in English
vine •
voiceless linguolabial fricative •
voiced linguolabial fricative •
voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative, as in English
thing •
voiced dental non-sibilant fricative, as in English
that •
voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative •
voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative •
Voiceless alveolar fricative trill •
Voiced alveolar fricative trill •
voiceless palatal fricative •
voiced palatal fricative •
voiceless velar fricative •
voiced velar fricative •
voiceless palatal-velar fricative (articulation disputed) The IPA also has letters for epiglottal fricatives, •
voiceless epiglottal fricative •
voiced epiglottal fricative with allophonic trilling, but these might be better analyzed as pharyngeal trills. •
voiceless velopharyngeal fricative (often occurs with a
cleft palate) •
voiced velopharyngeal fricative Lateral fricatives •
voiceless dental lateral fricative •
voiced dental lateral fricative •
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative •
voiced alveolar lateral fricative •
voiceless postalveolar lateral fricative (
Mehri) •
voiced postalveolar lateral fricative • or extIPA
voiceless retroflex lateral fricative • or extIPA
Voiced retroflex lateral fricative (in
Ao) • or or extIPA
voiceless palatal lateral fricative • or extIPA
voiced palatal lateral fricative (allophonic in
Jebero) • or extIPA
voiceless velar lateral fricative • or extIPA
voiced velar lateral fricative The lateral fricative occurs as the
ll of
Welsh, as in
Lloyd,
Llewelyn, and
Machynlleth (, a town), as the unvoiced 'hl' and voiced 'dl' or 'dhl' in the several languages of Southern Africa (such as
Xhosa and
Zulu), and in Mongolian. • or and
voiceless lateral-median fricative (a
laterally lisped or ) (Modern South Arabian) • or and
voiced lateral-median fricative (a laterally lisped or ) (Modern South Arabian)
IPA letters used for both fricatives and approximants •
voiceless uvular fricative •
voiced uvular fricative •
voiceless pharyngeal fricative •
voiced pharyngeal fricative No language distinguishes fricatives from
approximants at these places, so the same symbol is used for both. For the pharyngeal, approximants are more numerous than fricatives. A fricative realization may be specified by adding the
uptack to the letters, . Likewise, the
downtack may be added to specify an approximant realization, . (The
bilabial approximant and
dental approximant do not have dedicated symbols either and are transcribed in a similar fashion: . However, the base letters are understood to specifically refer to the fricatives.)
Pseudo-fricatives •
voiceless glottal transition, as in English
hat •
breathy-voiced glottal transition In many languages, such as English or Korean, the glottal "fricatives" are unaccompanied
phonation states of the glottis, without any accompanying
manner, fricative or otherwise. They may be mistaken for real glottal constrictions in a number of languages, such as
Finnish.
Aspirated fricatives Fricatives are very commonly voiced, though cross-linguistically voiced fricatives are not nearly as common as
tenuis ("plain") fricatives. Other
phonations are common in languages that have those phonations in their stop consonants. However, phonemically
aspirated fricatives are rare. contrasts with a tense, unaspirated in
Korean; aspirated fricatives are also found in a few
Sino-Tibetan languages, in some
Oto-Manguean languages, in the Siouan language
Ofo ( and ), and in the (central?)
Chumash languages ( and ). The record may be
Cone Tibetan, which has four contrastive aspirated fricatives: , , and .
Nasalized fricatives Phonemically
nasalized fricatives are rare. and
Souletin Basque have . In
Coatzospan Mixtec, appear allophonically before a nasal vowel, and in
Igbo nasality is a feature of the syllable; when occur in nasal syllables they are themselves nasalized. A similar feature exists in
Eperara, where is an allophone of in nasal syllables. ---- ==Occurrence==