Voiceless upper-pharyngeal plosive

The voiceless upper-pharyngeal plosive or stop is a rare consonant.

Pharyngeal consonants are typically pronounced at two regions of the pharynx, upper and lower. The lower region is epiglottal, so the upper region is often abbreviated as merely 'pharyngeal'. Among widespread speech sounds in the world's languages, the upper pharynx produces a voiceless fricative [ħ] and a voiced sound that ranges from fricative to (more commonly) approximant, [ʕ]. The epiglottal region produces the plosive [ʡ] as well as sounds that range from fricative to trill, [ʜ] and [ʢ]. Because the latter pair is most often trilled and rarely simply fricative, these consonants have been classified together as simply pharyngeal, and distinguished as plosive, fricative/approximant and trill.^[1]

No language is known to have a phonemic upper pharyngeal plosive. The Nǁng language (Nǀuu) is claimed to have an upper pharyngeal place of articulation among its stops. Click consonants in Nǁng have a rear closure that is said to vary between uvular or upper pharyngeal, depending on the click type.^[2] However, if the place were truly pharyngeal, they could not occur as nasal clicks, which they do.

Otherwise upper pharyngeal plosives are only known from disordered speech. They appear for example in the speech of some children with cleft palate, as compensatory backing of stops to avoid nasalizing them. The extIPA provides the letter ⟨ꞯ⟩ (a small-capital Q), to transcribe such a voiceless upper pharyngeal plosive.^[3][4]

Features[]

Features of the voiceless upper-pharyngeal stop:

• Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive.
• Its place of articulation is pharyngeal, which means it is articulated with the tongue root against the back of the throat (the pharynx).
• Its phonation 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 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.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

References[]