Everything about Ejective Consonant totally explained
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. Additionally, some languages have sonorants with creaky voice that pattern with ejectives while other languages have ejectives that pattern with implosives — this has led to phonologists positing a phonological class of
glottalized consonants (see
glottalic consonant and below for further discussion).
Description
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's a noticeable burst of air. The
Adam's apple may be seen moving when the sound is pronounced. In the languages where they're 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. These weakly ejective articulations are sometimes called
intermediates in older American linguistic literature and are notated with different phonetic symbols: [C!] = strongly ejective, [C’] = weakly ejective. Strong and weak ejectives have not been found to be contrastive in any known language.
In strict, technical terms, ejectives are
glottalic egressive consonants. The most common ejective is [k’], as it's 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’].
Occurrence in languages
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're rare.
Language families which distinguish ejective consonants include all three Caucasian families (
Abkhaz-Adyghe,
Nakho-Dagestanian and
Kartvelian (
Georgian)); the
Athabaskan,
Siouan 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 most of the
Cushitic and
Omotic languages,
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; nevertheless, ejectives are found in the Indo-European
Ossetic and some dialects of
Armenian; both have acquired ejectives under the influence of the nearby Caucasian language families.
It had once been predicted that both ejectives and implosives wouldn't be found in the same language, but this is now shown to be incorrect, both being found phonemically at plural points of articulation in at least the Nilo-Saharan languages
Gumuz,
Me'en, and
Twampa. In addition, a number of
East Cushitic languages have a series of ejective consonants and a single implosive, a voiced
retroflex stop.
Types of Ejectives
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’] isn't unusual (at least among the
Khoisan languages), especially considering that plain [kx] isn't 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 (Beck 2006). Other languages with ejective fricatives are
Yuchi, which in some sources is analyzed as having [ɸ’], [s’], [ʃ’], and [ɬ’] (note this isn't the analysis of the Wikipedia article),
Acoma Keres, with [ʂ’] and [ɕ’], and
Lakota, with [s’], [ʃ’], and [x’].
Amharic is interpreted by many as having an ejective fricative [s'], at least historically, but it has been also analyzed as now being a sociolinguistic variant (Takkele Taddese 1992).
Strangely, although an ejective retroflex stop is easy to make and quite distinctive in sound, it's very rare. Retroflex ejective stops and affricates, [ʈ’,ʈʂ’], are reported from
Yawelmani and other
Yokuts languages, as well as
Tolowa_language; however, and the retroflex ejective affricate is also found allophonically in most
Northwest Caucasian languages.
Ejective
sonorants don't occur. When sonorants are written with an apostrophe, as if they were ejective, they actually involve a different airstream mechanism: they're
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.
IPA transcription
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.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ejective Consonant'.
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