Retroflex ejective stop
Consonantal sound
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A retroflex ejective is a rare consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʈʼ⟩.
Features
Features of a retroflex ejective stop:
- Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, it is a plosive.
- Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue can be apical (pointed) or, in some fricatives, laminal (flat).
- Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
- It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
- It is a median consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream down the midline of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
- The airstream mechanism is ejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping the glottis upward.
Occurrence
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | Indian[citation needed] | beet | [biːʈʼ] | 'beet' | This sound usually occurs at the end of a phrase as an allophone of /t/. |
| Yokuts | Wukchumni[1] | ṭʼa∙yʼ | [ʈʼaːjˀ] | 'down feather' | Phonemically distinct, not found in other Yokuts dialects |