Alveolar ejective

The alveolar ejective is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is tʼ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t_>.

Features

Features of the aveolar ejective:

• Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
• Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the center of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is glottalic egressive, which means that the air, which is trapped between the closed glottis and alveolar obstruction, is pushed out through an upwards movement of the larynx.

Occurs in

• Ethiopian Semitic languages
• Modern South Arabian
• most Caucasian languages

See also

• List of phonetic topics