The voiceless alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described.

• The symbol for the alveolar sibilant is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is s. The IPA symbol ^* is not normally used for dental or postalveolar sibilants unless modified by a diacritic ( and respectively).
• The IPA symbol for the alveolar non-sibilant fricative is derived by means of diacritics; it can be or , or it can be , using the alveolar diacritic from the Extended IPA. (Pandeli et al 1997)

coronal fricatives	dental	alveolar	postalveolar
sibilant
non-sibilant

The voiceless alveolar sibilant

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The voiceless alveolar sibilant is one of the most common consonants. If a language has fricatives, it will most likely have an (Maddieson, 1984). However, [s is absent from Australian Aboriginal languages, where fricatives are rare, and the few languages that have developed fricatives do not have sibilants.

Features

Features of the voiceless alveolar sibilant:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is produced by directing air flow through a groove in the tongue at the place of articulation and directing it over the sharp edge of the teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

In English

The voiceless alveolar sibilant occurs in English, and it is the sound denoted by the letter 's' in sit or pass. When a plosive such as ^*" target="_blank" >follows the de-aspirated, sounding closer to a non-voiced ^*," target="_blank" >^*.

The voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative

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Features

The features of the voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative are identical to those above, except that,

• Its manner of articulation is simple fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence, but without the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.

Found in

English

The voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative can occur, as an allophone of , in some accents of English, including Hiberno-English and Scouse, the dialect spoken in Liverpool. (Honeybone 2001, Marotta and Barth 2005, Pandeli et al 1997.)

Icelandic

The Icelandic letter þ (thorn) is used for this sound. Þ occurs at the beginning of a word, while the voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative ð occurs elsewhere. (Old English used the letters þ and ð (eth) indiscrimately for both the voiceless and voiced dental fricative, which had a similar allophonic distribution; in modern English both are replaced by the diagraph "th".) Icelandic is laminal, whereas is usually apical.

• Icelandic þakið "roof".

See also

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• List of phonetics topics

References

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• I. Maddieson, 1984. "Patterns of sound". Camebridge University Press
• Honeybone, P. (2001), Lenition inhibition in Liverpool English, English Language and Linguistics 5.2, pp213-249.
• Marotta, G. and Barth, M., Acoustic and sociolingustic aspects of lenition in Liverpool English, Studi Linguistici e Filologici Online 3.2, pp377-413. Available online (including sound files).
• Pandeli, H., Eska, J., Ball, M. and Rahilly, J., Problems of phonetic transcription: the case of the Hiberno-English slit-t, Journal of the International Phonetic Association 27, pp65-75.

Alveolar consonants | Fricative consonants

Neznělá alveolární frikativa | Stimmloser alveolarer Frikativ | Consonne fricative alvéolaire sourde | Fricativa alveolar surda | Consoană fricativă alveolară surdă | Tonlös alveolar frikativa