The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is (which is different from the integral symbol ∫), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is S. An alternative symbol used in some older and American linguistic literature is š, an s with háček.

Features

Features of the voiceless postalveolar fricative:

• 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 palato-alveolar, that is, domed (partially palatalized) postalveolar, which means it is articulated with the front of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue bunched up ("domed") at the palate.
• 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 postalveolar fricative occurs in English, and it is the sound denoted by the letters 'sh' in shoe, the letters 'ssi' in passion, or the letters 'ti' in donation. In English (as in French, but unlike Russian) the sound is labialized, , although few transcriptions bother with this level of detail.

In other languages

• š in Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian
• sz in Polish
• ŝ in Esperanto
• sch in German
• s in Hungarian
• x in Catalan
• ch in French
• sc in Italian (and a few related languages) and Old English
• ş in Turkish and Romanian
• x or ch in Portuguese

See also

• List of phonetics topics

Fricative consonants

Fricativa postalveolar sorda | Neznělá postalveolární frikativa | Stimmloser postalveolarer Frikativ | Consonne fricative post-alvéolaire sourde | Fricativa postalveolare sorda | Fricativa palatoalveolar surda | Consoană fricativă postalveolară surdă | Tonlös postalveolar frikativa