Voiced dental and alveolar trills

A voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. An alveolar trill is familiar to many people as the sound of an Italian or Spanish .

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is . It is commonly called the rolled R, rolling R, or trilled R. Quite often, is used in phonemic transcriptions (especially those found in dictionaries) of languages like English and German that have rhotic consonants that are not an alveolar trill. That is partly for ease of typesetting and partly because is the letter used in the orthographies of such languages.

In many Indo-European languages, a trill may often be reduced to a single vibration in unstressed positions. In Italian, a simple trill typically displays only one or two vibrations, while a geminate trill will have three or more. Languages where trills always have multiple vibrations include Albanian, Spanish, Cypriot Greek, and a number of Armenian and Portuguese dialects.

People with ankyloglossia may find it exceptionally difficult to articulate the sound because of the limited mobility of their tongues.

Features Features of a voiced alveolar trill:

Its place of articulation may be: dental (behind the upper front teeth), alveolar (at the alveolar ridge), or post-alveolar (behind the alveolar ridge). It is most often apical, which means it is pronounced with the tip of the tongue.

Occurrence

Dental

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Hungarian, 'that way' Laminal dental. See Hungarian phonology Marshallese 'to be small' Palatalized. The language's two other rhotic phonemes, (velarized) and (rounded), are post-alveolar. Romanian 'quickly' Apical. See Romanian phonology Russian; cited in / 'zealous' Apical, palatalized. Usually only a single vibration, presumably due to the palatalization. It contrasts with a post-alveolar trill. See Russian phonology

Alveolar Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Afrikaans Standard 'red' May be a tap instead. See Afrikaans phonology Arabic Modern Standard / 'saw' (verb) In free variation with by many speakers. Aragonese 'basement' Contrasts with /ɾ/. ArmenianEastern / 'cannonball' Asturian 'tool' Contrasts with /ɾ/.Bengali /'night' Very rare and mainly occurs word-initially. More commonly [ ~ ] for most speakers. See Bengali phonology Breton 'king' Dominant in and around Léon and Morbihan while many other dialects have adopted the voiced uvular fricative. See Breton phonologyBulgarian/'work'See Bulgarian phonologyChuvash/[arəsˈlan]'lion' Czech 'register' Contrasts with ; may be syllabic. See Czech phonology Danish Few older speakers of the Jutlandic dialect [ræjˀn] Corresponds to much more back in standard Danish. See Danish phonology Dutch Standard 'window' See Dutch phonology English Scottish curd 'curd' Only some dialects. Corresponds to [ ~ ] in others. See English phonology Welsh bright 'bright' Some dialects under Welsh influence. Corresponds to in others. Estonian 'floor' See Estonian phonology Finnish 'raw' See Finnish phonology Greek Standard / 'artos' Allophone of . Usual in clusters, otherwise a tap or an approximant. See Modern Greek phonology Cypriot / 'north' Contrasts with . Hindustani Hindi / 'stone' See Hindustani phonologyUrdu / Indonesian 'vibrate' See Indonesian phonology Italian 'earth' See Italian phonology Japanese Shitamachi dialect 'from' Allophone of /ɾ/. See Japanese phonology. Kansai dialect Kele 'leg' Kharia 'tear' Khmer / 'fish' or 'three' See Khmer phonologyKoreanYukjin Korean/[to̞tʰɨr]'patience'Allophone of . Influenced by Soviet presence in the Yukjin region. Kyrgyz / 'song' Latvian 'horn' See Latvian phonology Lithuanian 'and' See Lithuanian phonologyMalayStandard / 'less'May be postalveolar approximant [], or more commonly, flap . Silent in word-final position for speakers of 'schwa-varieties'. See Malay phonologyBruneiCorresponds to and in other Malay varietiesSabahMalayalam/'rock' See Malayalam phonology Mandarin Huguang Southwestern Mandarin 'saw' Found in the suffix in various localities, including by not limited to (in Jingzhou), Zhongxiang, Yicheng, Jingmen, and Jiangling. Nepali / 'drawer' See Nepali phonology Persian Standard ruz 'day' Occurs word-initially and when geminated.Haghshenas, Ali-Mohammad. Phonetics. Chapter 4. In other positions, it is realized as a tap . See Persian phonology. Polish 'step' Usually realized as . See Polish phonology. Portuguese 'mouse' Contrasts with . Many northern dialects retain the alveolar trill, and the trill is still dominant in rural areas. See Portuguese phonology and Guttural R. Scots 'bright' Scottish Gaelic 'false' Velarized. Pronounced as a trill at the beginning of a word, or as rr, or before consonants d, t, l, n, s; otherwise a voiced alveolar tap. Contrasts with and intervocally and word-finally. See Scottish Gaelic phonology Serbo-Croatian / 'cape' May be syllabic. See Serbo-Croatian phonology Slovak 'neck' May be a tap, particularly when not syllabic. Slovene 'rice' Also described as tap , and variable between trill and tap . See Slovene phonology Spanish 'dog' Contrasts with . See Spanish phonology Swedish Some West coast and Northern dialects 'good' See Swedish phonology Tagalog 'rambutan' Allophone of the more common , especially with more conservative speakers.Schachter and Reid (2008) See Tagalog phonologyTamil/'bird'See Tamil phonology Thai Standard / 'Chonburi' Titan 'girls' Ukrainian / 'motion' See Ukrainian phonology Welsh 'December' Contrasts with the voiceless alveolar trill, . See Welsh phonology Wu Chinese Xuanzhou Wu (Qiugong locality) 'younger brother' Found in various Xuanzhou localities, with that of Qiugong residential community, , Xuanzhou District, Xuanzhou prefecture provided. Equivalent to in other Wu varieties (cf. Shanghainese ). Yiddish Standard / 'bridge' More commonly a flap ; can be uvular instead. See Yiddish phonology Zapotec Tilquiapan 'go out (habitually)' Underlyingly sequence of two .

Post-alveolar

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Catalan 'donkey' Apical. Contrasts with . See Catalan phonology Gokana 'we' Allophone of , medially between vowels within the morpheme, and finally in the morphemebefore a following vowel in the same word. It can be a postalveolar tap or simply instead. Marshallese 'whale' is velarized and is rounded. Another rhotic phoneme in the language, , is dental and palatalized. 'ebb tide' Russian / 'to play' Contrasts with a palatalized dental trill. See Russian phonology

Variable Language Word IPA Meaning Notes German Standard (chiefly areas with Upper German or Low German influence as well as immigrant speakers) 'nonsense' Varies between apical dental and apical alveolar; may be a tap instead. See Standard German phonology

Fricative trill

In Czech, there are two contrasting alveolar trills. Besides the typical apical trill, written r, there is another laminal trill, written ř, in words such as rybáři 'fishermen' and the common surname Dvořák. Its manner of articulation is similar to but is laminal and the body of the tongue is raised. It is thus partially fricative, with the frication sounding rather like but less retracted. It sounds like a simultaneous and , and some speakers tend to pronounce it as , , or . In the IPA, it is typically written as plus the raising diacritic, , but it has also been written as laminal .For example, Ladefoged (1971). (Before the 1989 IPA Kiel Convention, it had a dedicated symbol .) The Kobon language of Papua New Guinea also has a fricative trill, but the degree of frication is variable. The Kpwe language of Cameroon has been reported to have a similar sound. Features Features of the voiced alveolar fricative trill:

Its place of articulation is laminal alveolar, which means it is articulated with the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge.

Examples Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Czech 'four' Contrasts with and . May be a non-sibilant fricative. See Czech phonology Dzongkha་/ 'bone'Usually released as a normal trilled [r], sometimes it has a slightly fricative character vaguely reminiscent of Czech ř. Dzongkha r is followed by the low register tone. Kashubian 'river' Only some northern and northwestern speakers. Formerly common over the whole speaking area. Ormuri Standard (Kaniguram) / 'summer' Corresponds to /ʃ/ in Logar dialect. Polish Some dialects 'river' Contrasts with and . Present in areas from Starogard Gdański to Malbork and those south, west and northwest of them, area from Lubawa to Olsztyn to Olecko to Działdowo, south and east of Wieleń, around Wołomin, southeast of Ostrów Mazowiecka and west of Siedlce, from Brzeg to Opole and areas to the north, and roughly from Racibórz to Nowy Targ. Most speakers, as well as standard Polish, merge it with , and speakers maintaining the distinction (which is mostly the elderly) sporadically do as well. See Polish phonology Portuguese European 'the kidneys' Possible realization of the sequence for speakers who realize as . See Portuguese phonology Silesian Gmina Istebna '(he) died' Contrasts with and . Merges with in most Polish dialects. Jablunkov Slovak Northern dialects 'river' Only in a few dialects near the Polish border. See Slovak phonologySpanish 'frog'Possible realization of in some dialects, may also be realized as a non-sibilant alveolar fricative or as a sibilant retroflex fricative . Chicahuaxtla TriqueA. Raymond Elliott, P. Hernández Cruz & F. Sandoval Cruz, "Dàj guruguiˈ yumiguiì 'de como apareció la gente del mundo': leyenda en triqui de Chicahuaxtla". Tlalocan vol. 25, 2020, p.153. or 'hand'Initial allophone of /r/. Tsakonian 'justice of the peace' appears to have been a fricative trill in the 19th century, and survived latterly only in women's usage in Southern Tsakonian.

Voiced dental and alveolar trills

Bron en licentie