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phonationNo footnotes|date=August 2008In linguistics , voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation , which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voice (phonetics)|voicing , and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation.
The International Phonetic Alphabet has distinct letters for many voiceless and modal voice|modally voiced pairs of consonants (the obstruent s), such as IPA|p b, t d, k g, q ?f v, s z. In addition, there are diacritics for voicelessness, IPA diacritic description|0325|COMBINING RING BELOW and IPA diacritic description|030A|COMBINING RING ABOVE|, which is used for letters with a descender . Diacritics are typically used with letters for prototypically voiced sounds, such as vowel s and sonorant consonant s: IPA|?, l?, ?°.
Voiceless vowels and other sonorants
Sonorant s are those sounds, such as vowels and nasal stop s, which are voiced in most of the world's languages. However, in some languages sonorants may be voiceless, usually allophone|allophonically . For example, the Japanese language|Japanese word sukiyaki is pronounced IPA|su?kijaki. This may sound like IPA|skijaki to an English speaker, but the lips can be seen compressing for the IPA|u?. Something similar happens in English with words like p e culiar IPA|p???'kju?li? and p o tato IPA|p???'te?to?.
Sonorants may also be contrastively voiceless, not just voiceless due to their environment. Tibetan language|Tibetan , for example, has a voiceless IPA|/l?/ in Lhasa, which sounds similar to, but is not as noisy as, the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative|voiceless lateral fricative IPA|/?/ in Welsh language|Welsh , and which contrasts with a modally voiced IPA|/l/. Welsh contrasts several voiceless sonorants: IPA|/m, m?/, IPA|/n, n?/, IPA|/?, ?°/, and IPA|/r, r?/, the latter represented by "rh".
In the Moksha language there is even a voiceless palatal approximant IPA|/j°/ (written in Cyrillic as < ? ? > jh ) along with IPA|/l?/ and IPA|/r?/ (written as < ? ?> lh and < ? ?> rh ). The last two have also palatalized counterparts IPA|/l??/ and IPA|/r??/ ( and ). In the Kildin Sami language there is also this IPA|/j°/ < ? >.
On the other hand, although contrastively voiceless vowels have been reported several times, they have never been verified (L& M 1996:315).
Lack of voicing contrast in obstruents
Many languages lack a distinction between voiced and voiceless obstruent s (plosives, affricates, and fricatives). This is nearly universal in Dravidian languages and Australian languages , but is widely found elsewhere, for example in Mandarin Chinese , Korean language|Korean , Finnish language|Finnish , and the Polynesian languages . Consider Hawaiian language|Hawaiian , which has a IPA|/p/ and IPA|/k/, but no IPA|/b/ or IPA|/g/. In many such languages (though not in Polynesian), obstruents are realized as voiced in voiced environments, such as between vowels or between a vowel and a nasal, and voiceless elsewhere, such as at the beginning or end of the word or next to another obstruent. Usually these sounds are transcribed with the voiceless IPA letters, though in Australia the letters for voiced consonants are sometimes used.
It appears that voicelessness is not a single phenomenon in such languages. In some, such as the Polynesian languages, the vocal cords are required to actively open to allow an unimpeded (silent) airstream. This is sometimes called a breathed (IPA|/'br??t/) phonation (not to be confused with breathy voice ). In others, such as many Australian languages, voicing ceases during the hold of a plosive (few Australian languages have any other kind of obstruent) because airflow is insufficient to sustain it, and if the vocal cords open this is due to passive relaxation. Correspondingly, Polynesian plosives are reported to be held for longer than Australian plosives, and are seldom voiced, whereas Australian plosives are prone to having voiced variants (L& M 1996:53). In Southeast Asia, when stops occur at the end of a word they are voiceless because the glottis is closed, not open, and so these are said to be unphonated (have no phonation) by some phoneticians who considered "breathed" voicelessness to be a phonation.Jerold Edmondson, John Esling, Jimmy Harris, and James Wei, http://ling.uta.edu/~jerry/suip.pdf "A phonetic study of the Sui consonants and tones" Mon–Khmer Studies 34 :47–66
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ar:??? ????? de:Stimmlosigkeit pt:Fonação surda
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