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Voiced alveolar approximant
ɹ
ð̠˕
IPA number	151
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɹ
Unicode (hex)	U+0279
X-SAMPA	r\
Braille
Image

The voiced alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the alveolar and postalveolar approximants is ⟨ɹ⟩, a lowercase letter r rotated 180 degrees. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\.

The most common sound represented by the letter r in English is the voiced postalveolar approximant, pronounced a little more back and transcribed more precisely in IPA as ⟨ɹ̠⟩, but ⟨ɹ⟩ is often used for convenience in its place. For further ease of typesetting, English phonemic transcriptions might use the symbol ⟨r⟩ even though this symbol represents the alveolar trill in phonetic transcription.

The bunched or molar r sounds remarkably similar to the postalveolar approximant and can be described as a voiced labial pre-velar approximant with tongue-tip retraction. It can be transcribed in IPA as ⟨ψ⟩ or ⟨ɹ̈⟩.

Features

Features of the voiced alveolar approximant:

• Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but not enough to produce a turbulent airstream.
• Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Alveolar

Postalveolar

As an allophone of other rhotic sounds, occurs in Edo, Fula, Murrinh-patha, and Palauan.

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

Notes

1. Laver, John (1994). Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge University Press. p. 302. ISBN 0-521-45655-X.
2. Khan (2010), pp. 223–224.
3. Cornyn (1944:7)
4. Watkins (2001)
5. Maddieson et al. (1993:34)
6. Maddieson et al. (1993:28, 34)
7. ^ Basbøll (2005:59 and 63)
8. ^ Grønnum (2003:121)
9. ^ Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:144)
10. Kohler (1995:165f), cited in Universität zu Köln: Phonologische Analyse
11. Wäller Platt: Die Aussprache
12. Arvaniti (2007:15–18)
13. Bakkes (2007:)
14. Acoustic-phonetic characteristics of the Brazilian Portuguese's retroflex /r/: data from respondents in Pato Branco, Paraná Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine. Irineu da Silva Ferraz. Pages 19–21 (in Portuguese)
15. Recasens (2004:436) citing Fougeron (1999) and Browman & Goldstein (1995)
16. Lipski (1994:222)
17. Engstrand (1999:141)
18. Thompson (1959:459)
19. Merrill (2008:109)
20. Hallé, Best & Levitt (1999:283) citing Delattre & Freeman (1968), Zawadzki & Kuehn (1980), and Boyce & Espy-Wilson (1997)
21. Ikekeonwu (1999:108)
22. ^ Puech (2013:74)
23. ^ Valenzuela, Márquez Pinedo & Maddieson (2001:282)
24. Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:240–241)

References

• Arvaniti, Amalia (2007), "Greek Phonetics: The State of the Art" (PDF), Journal of Greek Linguistics, 8: 97–208, doi:10.1075/jgl.8.08arv, archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-11
• Bakkes, Pierre (2007), Mofers Waordebook (in Dutch), Stichting Mofers Waordebook, ISBN 978-90-9022294-3
• Basbøll, Hans (2005), The Phonology of Danish, OUP Oxford, ISBN 0-19-824268-9
• Boyce, S.; Espy-Wilson, C. (1997), "Coarticulatory stability in American English /r/", Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 101 (6): 3741–3753, Bibcode:1997ASAJ..101.3741B, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.16.4174, doi:10.1121/1.418333, PMID 9193061
• Browman, C.P.; Goldstein, L. (1995), "Gestural syllable position in American English", in Bell-Berti, F.; Raphael, L.J. (eds.), Producing Speech: Contemporary Issues: for Katherine Safford Harris, New York: AIP, pp. 9–33
• Cornyn, William (1944), Outline of Burmese Grammar, Supplement to Language, vol. 20 no. 4, Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America
• Delattre, P.; Freeman, D.C. (1968), "A dialect study of American R's by x-ray motion picture", Linguistics, 44: 29–68
• Engstrand, Olle (1999), "Swedish", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 140–142, ISBN 9780521637510
• Fougeron, C (1999), "Prosodically conditioned articulatory variation: A Review", UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, vol. 97, pp. 1–73
• Grønnum, Nina (2003), "Why are the Danes so hard to understand?", in Jacobsen, Henrik Galberg; Bleses, Dorthe; Madsen, Thomas O.; Thomsen, Pia (eds.), Take Danish - for instance: linguistic studies in honour of Hans Basbøll, presented on the occasion of his 60th birthday, Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, pp. 119–130
• Hallé, Pierre A.; Best, Catherine T.; Levitt, Andrea (1999), "Phonetic vs. phonological influences on French listeners' perception of American English approximants", Journal of Phonetics, 27 (3): 281–306, doi:10.1006/jpho.1999.0097
• Ikekeonwu, Clara I. (1999), "Igbo", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 108–110, ISBN 9780521637510
• Khan, Sameer ud Dowla (2010), "Bengali (Bangladeshi Standard)" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 40 (2): 221–225, doi:10.1017/S0025100310000071

• Kohler, Klaus (1995), Einführung in die Phonetik des Deutschen, Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag
• Lipski, John M. (1994), Latin American Spanish, Longman, ISBN 978-0-582-08761-3
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
• Maddieson, Ian; Spajić, Siniša; Sands, Bonny; Ladefoged, Peter (1993), "Phonetic structures of Dahalo", in Maddieson, Ian (ed.), UCLA working papers in phonetics: Fieldwork studies of targeted languages, vol. 84, Los Angeles: The UCLA Phonetics Laboratory Group, pp. 25–65
• Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 38 (1): 107–114, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344
• Moosmüller, Sylvia; Schmid, Carolin; Brandstätter, Julia (2015), "Standard Austrian German", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 45 (3): 339–348, doi:10.1017/S0025100315000055
• Puech, Gilbert (2013), "Prime constituents of Maltese sounds", in Borg, Albert; Caruana, Sandro; Vella, Alexandra (eds.), Perspectives on Maltese Linguistics, Berlin: Akademie Verlag GmbH, pp. 61–88, ISBN 978-3-05-006275-4
• Recasens, Daniel (2004), "The effect of syllable position on consonant reduction (evidence from Catalan consonant clusters)", Journal of Phonetics, 32 (3): 435–453, doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2004.02.001
• Valenzuela, Pilar M.; Márquez Pinedo, Luis; Maddieson, Ian (2001), "Shipibo", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31 (2): 281–285, doi:10.1017/S0025100301002109
• Thompson, Laurence C. (1959), "Saigon Phonemics", Language, 35 (3), Linguistic Society of America: 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232
• Watkins, Justin (2001), "Illustrations of the IPA: Burmese" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31 (2): 291–95, doi:10.1017/S0025100301002122, S2CID 232344700
• Zawadzki, P.A.; Kuehn, D.P. (1980), "A cineradiographic study of static and dynamic aspects of American English /r/", Phonetica, 37 (4): 253–266, doi:10.1159/000259995, PMID 7443796, S2CID 46760239

External links

• List of languages with [ɹ] on PHOIBLE

v t e International Phonetic Alphabet (chart)
IPA topics IPA International Phonetic Association History of the alphabet Extensions for disordered speech (extIPA) Voice Quality Symbols (VoQS) Journal of the IPA (JIPA) Special topics Cursive forms Case variants Obsolete and nonstandard symbols Naming conventions Sinological extensions World Orthography IPA chart for English dialects Encodings ASCII encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode IPA number IPA Braille
Consonants Pulmonic consonants Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Laryngeal Manner ↓ Bi­labial Labio­dental Linguo­labial Dental Alveolar Post­alveolar Retro­flex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn­geal/epi­glottal Glottal Nasal m̥ m ɱ̊ ɱ n̼ n̥ n ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ̥ ɴ Plosive p b p̪ b̪ t̼ d̼ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Sibilant affricate ts dz t̠ʃ d̠ʒ tʂ dʐ tɕ dʑ Non-sibilant affricate pɸ bβ p̪f b̪v t̪θ d̪ð tɹ̝̊ dɹ̝ t̠ɹ̠̊˔ d̠ɹ̠˔ cç ɟʝ kx ɡɣ qχ ɢʁ ʡʜ ʡʢ ʔh Sibilant fricative s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ̼ ð̼ θ ð θ̠ ð̠ ɹ̠̊˔ ɹ̠˔ ɻ̊˔ ɻ˔ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ h ɦ Approximant ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ ʔ̞ Tap/flap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ̼ ɾ̥ ɾ ɽ̊ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̆ Trill ʙ̥ ʙ r̥ r ɽ̊r̥ ɽr ʀ̥ ʀ ʜ ʢ Lateral affricate tɬ dɮ tꞎ d𝼅 c𝼆 ɟʎ̝ k𝼄 ɡʟ̝ Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ꞎ 𝼅 𝼆 ʎ̝ 𝼄 ʟ̝ Lateral approximant l ɭ ʎ ʟ ʟ̠ Lateral tap/flap ɺ̥ ɺ 𝼈̥ 𝼈 ʎ̆ ʟ̆ IPA help  audio full chart template Symbols to the right in a cell are voiced, to the left are voiceless. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible. Non-pulmonic consonants BL LD D A PA RF P V U EG Ejective Stop pʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʡʼ Affricate p̪fʼ t̪θʼ tsʼ t̠ʃʼ tʂʼ tɕʼ kxʼ qχʼ Fricative ɸʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ Lateral affricate tɬʼ c𝼆ʼ k𝼄ʼ q𝼄ʼ Lateral fricative ɬʼ Click (top: velar; bottom: uvular) Tenuis kʘ qʘ kǀ qǀ kǃ qǃ k𝼊 q𝼊 kǂ qǂ Voiced ɡʘ ɢʘ ɡǀ ɢǀ ɡǃ ɢǃ ɡ𝼊 ɢ𝼊 ɡǂ ɢǂ Nasal ŋʘ ɴʘ ŋǀ ɴǀ ŋǃ ɴǃ ŋ𝼊 ɴ𝼊 ŋǂ ɴǂ ʞ   Tenuis lateral kǁ qǁ Voiced lateral ɡǁ ɢǁ Nasal lateral ŋǁ ɴǁ Implosive Voiced ɓ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ʛ Voiceless ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ᶑ̊ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥ IPA help  audio full chart template Co-articulated consonants Nasal n͡m Labial–alveolar ɳ͡m Labial–retroflex ŋ͡m Labial–velar Plosive t͡pd͡b Labial–alveolar ʈ͡pɖ͡b Labial–retroflex k͡pɡ͡b Labial–velar q͡ʡ Uvular–epiglottal q͡p Labial–uvular Fricative/approximant ɥ̊ɥ Labial–palatal ʍw Labial–velar ɧ Sj-sound (variable) Lateral approximant ɫ Velarized alveolar Implosive ɠ̊͜ɓ̥ ɠ͡ɓ Labial–velar Ejective t͡pʼ Labial–alveolar IPA help full chart template Other Nasal labial–velar approximant Nasal palatal approximant Voiceless bidental fricative Voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop Voiceless nasal glottal approximant
Vowels Front Central Back Close i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u Near-close ɪ ʏ ʊ Close-mid e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o Mid e̞ ø̞ ə ɤ̞ o̞ Open-mid ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ Near-open æ ɐ Open a ɶ ä ɑ ɒ IPA help  audio full chart template Legend: unrounded • rounded

• Approximant consonants
• Alveolar consonants
• Pulmonic consonants
• Oral consonants
• Central consonants