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Ejective consonant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants .
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In producing an ejective, the glottis is raised while the forward articulation (a [k] in the case of [k’]) is held, raising air pressure in the mouth, so when the [k] is released, there is a noticeable burst of air. The Adam's apple may be seen moving when the sound is pronounced. In the languages where they are more obvious, ejectives are often described as sounding like "spat" consonants; but ejectives are often quite weak and, in some contexts, and in some languages, are easy to mistake for unaspirated plosives.
In strict, technical terms, ejectives are glottalic egressive consonants. The most common ejective is [k’], as it is easy to raise the necessary pressure within the small oral cavity used to pronounce a [k]. In proportion to the frequency of uvular consonants, [q’] is even more common, as would be expected from the very small oral cavity used to pronounce a [q]. [p’], on the other hand, is quite rare. This is the opposite pattern to what is found in the implosive consonants, in which the bilabial is common and the velar is rare (Joseph Greenberg 1970). Ejective fricatives are rare for presumably the same reason: with the air escaping from the mouth while the pressure is being raised, like inflating a leaky bicycle tire, it's harder to make the resulting sound as salient as a [k’].
Ejectives that phonemically contrast with pulmonic consonants occur in about 15% of languages around the world. They are extremely common in northwest North America, and frequently occur throughout the western parts of both North and South America. They are also common in eastern and southern Africa. In Eurasia, the Caucasus form an island of ejective languages. Elsewhere they are rare.
Language families which distinguish ejective consonants include all three Caucasian families (Circassian, Dagestanian and Kartvelian (Georgian)); the Athabaskan and Salishan families of North America, along with the many diverse families of the Pacific Northwest from central California to British Columbia; the Mayan family and Aymara; the Afro-Asiatic family (notably Hausa and South Semitic languages like Amharic and Tigrinya) and a few Nilo-Saharan languages; and the Khoisan family of southern Africa. Among the scattered languages with ejectives elsewhere are Itelmen of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages and Yapese of the Austronesian family. According to the glottalic theory, the Proto-Indo-European language had a series of ejectives, although no attested Indo-European language retains these sounds.
It had once been predicted that both ejectives and implosives would not be found in the same same language, but this is now shown to be incorrect, both being found phonemically in at least the Nilo-Saharan languages Gumuz, Me'en, and Twampa.
The vast majority of ejective consonants noted in the world's languages consists of stops or affricates, and all ejective consonants are obstruents. [k’] is the most common ejective, and [q’] is common among languages which have uvulars, [t’] less so, and [p’] is uncommon. Among affricates, [ts’], [tʃ’], [tɬ’] are all quite common, and [kx’] is not unusual (at least among the Khoisan languages), especially considering that plain [kx] is not a common sound.
A few languages utilise ejective fricatives: in some dialects of Hausa, the standard affricate [ts’] is a fricative [s’]; Ubykh (Northwest Caucasian) has an ejective lateral fricative [ɬ’]; and the related Kabardian also has ejective labiodental and alveolopalatal fricatives, [f’], [ʃ’], and [ɬ’]. Tlingit is an extreme case, with ejective alveolar, lateral, velar, and uvular fricatives, [s’], [ɬ’], [x’], [xʷ’], [χ’], [χʷ’]; it may be the only language with the latter. Upper Necaxa Totonac is unusual and perhaps unique in that it has ejective fricatives (alveolar, lateral, and postalveolar [s’], [ʃ’], [ɬ’]) but completely lacks ejective stops or affricates. Other languages with ejective fricatives are Yuchi, which in some sources is analyzed as having [ɸ’], [s’], [ʃ’], and [ɬ’] (note this is not the analysis of the Wikipedia article), Acoma Keres, with [ʂ’] and [ɕ’], and Lakota, with [s’], [ʃ’], and [x’].
Strangely, although an ejective retroflex stop is easy to make and quite distinctive in sound, it is very rare. Retroflex ejective stops and affricates, [ʈ’, ʈʂ’], are reported from Yawelmani and other Yokuts languages, however, and the retroflex ejective affricate is also found allophonically in most Northwest Caucasian languages.
Ejective sonorants do not occur. When sonorants are written with an apostrophe, as if they were ejective, they actually involve a different airstream mechanism: they are glottalized consonants and vowels, where glottalization interrupts an otherwise normal pulmonic airstream, somewhat like English uh-uh (either vocalic or nasal) pronounced as a single sound.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ejectives are indicated by writing a stop consonant with a "modifier letter apostrophe" (ʼ). Note that a reversed apostrophe is sometimes used to represent aspiration, as in Armenian [p‘ t‘ k‘]; this usage is obsolete in the IPA.
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1970. Some generalizations concerning glottalic consonants, especially implosives. International Journal of American Linguistics 36, 123-145.
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