Editing Postalveolar consonant (section)

==Postalveolar sibilants==
For most sounds involving the tongue, the [[place of articulation]] can be sufficiently identified just by specifying the point of contact on the upper part of the mouth (for example, [[velar consonant]]s involve contact on the soft palate and [[dental consonant]]s involve the teeth), along with any [[secondary articulation]] such as [[palatalization (phonetics)|palatalization]] (raising of the tongue body) or [[labialization]] (lip rounding).

However, among sibilants, particularly postalveolar sibilants, there are slight differences in the shape of the tongue and the point of contact on the tongue itself, which correspond to large differences in the resulting sound. For example, the alveolar fricative {{IPA|[s]}} and the three postalveolar fricatives {{IPA|[ɕ ʃ ʂ]}} differ noticeably both in pitch and sharpness; the order {{IPA|[s ɕ ʃ ʂ]}} corresponds to progressively lower-pitched and duller (less "hissy" or piercing) sounds. ({{IPA|[s]}} is the highest-pitched and most piercing, which is the reason that hissing sounds like "Sssst!" or "Psssst!" are typically used to attract someone's attention). As a result, it is necessary to specify many additional subtypes.
<!-- Formerly, the next paragraph was confusing and inaccurate. I tried to rewrite it as follows, but it still is not accurate. {{IPA|[s]}} differs from the others by the grooved tongue shape, in addition to the point of tongue contact, and {{IPA|[ʃ]}} differs more in the domed tongue shape than in the point of tongue contact, which can occur anywhere from the tip to the front of the body. That is not really a "point of tongue contact" series at all but a tongue-shape series and so {{IPA|[ʂ]}} is no more or less part of the series than the others.

The four alveolar and postalveolar fricatives {{IPA|[s s̠ ʃ ɕ]}} are distinguished by the part of the tongue making contact with the roof of the mouth, ordered from front to back along the top surface of the tongue.<ref>John Esling, 2010, "Phonetic Notation". In Hardcastle, Laver, & Gibbon, eds, ''The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences'', p 693</ref> {{IPA|[s]}} is a [[coronal consonant]], articulated with the tip of the tongue or the blade (the portion just behind the tip). {{IPA|[ɕ]}} is a [[dorsal consonant]], articulated with the body of the tongue. {{IPA|[ʃ]}} is intermediate. The retroflex sound, {{IPA|[ʂ]}}, is typically made with the tip of the tongue but is not part of the same series since it varies in the shape of the tongue, rather than the point of contact. -->

===Tongue shape===
The main distinction is the shape of the tongue, which corresponds to differing degrees of [[Palatalization (phonetics)|palatalization]] (raising of the body of the tongue). From least to most palatalized, they are ''[[retroflex consonant|retroflex]]'' (such as {{IPA|[ʂ ʐ]}}, unpalatalized); ''[[palato-alveolar consonant|palato-alveolar]]'' (such as {{IPA|[ʃ ʒ]}}, weakly palatalized); and ''[[alveolo-palatal consonant|alveolo-palatal]]'' (such as {{IPA|[ɕ ʑ]}}, strongly palatalized). The increasing palatalization corresponds to progressively higher-pitched and sharper-sounding consonants.

Less technically, the retroflex consonant {{IPA|[ʂ]}} sounds somewhat like a mixture between the regular English {{IPA|[ʃ]}} of "ship" and the "h" at the beginning of "heard", especially when it is pronounced forcefully and with a strong [[rhoticity in English|American "r"]]. The alveolo-palatal consonant {{IPA|[ɕ]}} sounds like a strongly palatalized version of {{IPA|[ʃ]}}, somewhat like "nourish you".

The following table shows the three types of postalveolar sibilant fricatives defined in the IPA:

{| class=wikitable
|+IPA transcription of postalveolar sibilants
|-
! colspan=6 | Voiceless
! colspan=6 | Voiced
|-
! rowspan=2 | IPA
! rowspan=2 | Description
! colspan=4 | Example
! rowspan=2 | IPA
! rowspan=2 | Description
! colspan=4 | Example
|-
! Language
! Orthography
! IPA
! Meaning
! Language
! Orthography
! IPA
! Meaning
|-
! {{IPA|ʃ}}
| [[Voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant]]
| [[English language|English]]
| '''sh'''in
| {{IPA|['''ʃ'''ɪn]}}
| shin
! {{IPA|ʒ}}
| [[Voiced palato-alveolar sibilant]]
| [[English language|English]]
| vi'''s'''ion
| {{IPA|[vɪ'''ʒ'''ən]}}
| vision
|-
! {{IPA|ɕ}}
| [[Voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant]]
| [[Mandarin Chinese|Mandarin]]
| 小 ('''x'''iǎo)
| {{IPA|[}}'''{{IPA|ɕ}}'''{{IPA|iɑu˨˩˦]}}
| small
! {{IPA|ʑ}}
| [[Voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant]]
| [[Polish language|Polish]]
| '''zi'''oło
| {{IPA|[}}'''{{IPA|ʑ}}'''{{IPA|ɔwɔ]}}
| herb
|-
|- style="height:4em"
! {{IPA|ʂ}}
| [[voiceless retroflex sibilant]]
| [[Mandarin Chinese|Mandarin]]
| 上海 ('''Sh'''ànghǎi)
| {{IPA|[}}'''{{IPA|ʂ}}'''{{IPA|ɑ̂ŋ.xàɪ]}}
| Shanghai
! {{IPA|ʐ}}
| [[voiced retroflex sibilant]]
| [[Russian language|Russian]]<br>[[Polish language|Polish]]
| '''ж'''аба ('''''ž'''aba'')
[[Polish orthography|'''ż'''aba]]
| {{IPA|[}}'''{{IPA|ʐ}}'''{{IPA|abə]}}
{{IPA|[}}'''{{IPA|ʐ}}'''{{IPA|aba]}}
| toad<br>frog
|-
|}

===Point of tongue contact (laminal, apical, subapical)===
A second variable is whether the contact occurs with the very tip of the tongue (an ''[[apical consonant|apical]]'' articulation {{IPA|[ʃ̺]}}), with the surface just above the tip, the ''blade'' of the tongue (a ''[[laminal consonant|laminal]]'' articulation {{IPA|[ʃ̻]}}), or with the underside of the tip (a ''[[subapical consonant|subapical]]'' articulation). Apical and subapical articulations are always "tongue-up", with the tip of the tongue above the teeth, and laminal articulations are often "tongue-down", with the tip of the tongue behind the lower teeth.

The upward curvature of the tongue tip to make apical or subapical contact renders palatalization more difficult so domed (palato-alveolar) consonants are not attested with subapical articulation and fully palatalized (such as alveolo-palatal) sounds occur only with laminal articulation. Also, the apical-laminal distinction among palato-alveolar sounds makes little (although presumably non-zero<ref>The [[Toda language]] consistently uses a laminal articulation for its palato-alveolar sibilants, which presumably makes the sound a bit "sharper", more like the alveolo-palatal sibilants, increasing the perceptual difference from the two types of retroflex sibilants that also occur in Toda.</ref>) perceptible difference; both articulations, in fact, occur among English-speakers.<ref>{{SOWL}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=December 2024}}

As a result, the differing points of tongue contact (laminal, apical and subapical) are significant largely for retroflex sounds. Retroflex sounds can also occur outside of the postalveolar region, ranging from as far back as the [[palatal consonant|hard palate]] to as far forward as the [[alveolar consonant|alveolar region]] behind the teeth. Subapical retroflex sounds are often palatal (and vice versa), which occur particularly in the [[Dravidian languages]].

===Position of tongue tip (laminal "closed")===
There is an additional distinction that can be made among tongue-down laminal sounds, depending on exactly where behind the lower teeth the tongue tip is placed. A bit behind the lower teeth is a hollow area (or pit) in the lower surface of the mouth. When the tongue tip rests in the hollowed area, there is an empty space below the tongue (a ''sublingual cavity''), which results in a relatively more "hushing" sound. When the tip of the tongue rests against the lower teeth, there is no sublingual cavity, resulting in a more "hissing" sound. Generally, the tongue-down postalveolar consonants have the tongue tip on the hollowed area (with a sublingual cavity), whereas for the tongue-down alveolar consonants, the tongue tip rests against the teeth (no sublingual cavity), which accentuates the hissing vs. hushing distinction of these sounds.

However, the palato-alveolar sibilants in [[Northwest Caucasian languages]] such as the extinct [[Ubykh language|Ubykh]] have the tongue tip resting directly against the lower teeth rather than in the hollowed area. Ladefoged and Maddieson<ref>{{SOWL}}</ref> term it a "''closed'' laminal postalveolar" articulation, which gives the sounds a quality that [[JC Catford]] describes as "hissing-hushing" sounds. Catford transcribes them as {{angbr IPA|ŝ, ẑ}} (that is not IPA notation; the [[obsolete IPA]] letters {{angbr IPA|ʆ, ʓ}} have occasionally been resurrected for these sounds).

A laminal "closed" articulation could also be made with alveolo-palatal sibilants and a laminal "non-closed" articulation with alveolar sibilants, but no language appears to do so. In addition, no language seems to have a minimal contrast between two sounds based only on the "closed"/"non-closed" variation, with no concomitant articulatory distinctions (for all languages, including the [[Northwest Caucasian languages]], if the language has two laminal sibilants, one of which is "closed" and the other is "non-closed", they will also differ in some other ways).

===Examples===
A few languages distinguish three different postalveolar sibilant tongue shapes ({{IPA|/ʂ/ /ʃ/ /ɕ/}}) such as the [[Sino-Tibetan languages|Sino-Tibetan]] [[Northern Qiang]] and [[Southern Qiang]], which make such a distinction among [[affricate]]s (but only a two-way distinction among [[fricative]]s) and the [[Northwest Caucasian languages]] [[Ubykh language|Ubykh]] (now extinct) and [[Abkhaz language|Abkhaz]]. More common are languages such as [[Mandarin Chinese]] and [[Polish language|Polish]], which distinguish two postalveolar [[sibilants]], typically {{IPA|/ʂ/ /ɕ/}} since they are maximally distinct.

The attested possibilities, with exemplar languages, are as follows. IPA diacritics are simplified, and some articulations would require two diacritics to be fully specified, but only one is used to keep the results legible without the need for [[OpenType]] IPA fonts. Also, [[Peter Ladefoged]], whose notation is used here, has resurrected an obsolete IPA symbol, the under dot, to indicate the apical postalveolar, which is normally included in the category of [[retroflex consonant]]s. The notation {{IPA|s̠, ṣ}} is sometimes reversed, and either may also be called 'retroflex' and written {{IPA|ʂ}}.

<!-- Note: Ladefoged is inconsistent in his sub-dot and sub-bar notation, especially between stops and fricatives. This table follows his verbal descriptions and his notation for stops as well as for the fricatives of Ubyx, which was mistakenly placed in the same row as Chinese and Polish in table 5.7 of SOWL, perhaps because of that ambiguity. -->
{|
! IPA !! Place of articulation !! Exemplifying languages
|-
| <big> {{IPA|[s̠&nbsp;z̠]}}</big> || laminal flat postalveolar (laminal retroflex) || [[Polish language|Polish]] ''sz, rz, cz, dż'', [[Mandarin Chinese|Mandarin]] ''sh, zh, ch''
|-
| <big> {{IPA|[ṣ&nbsp;ẓ]}}</big> || apical postalveolar (apical retroflex) || [[Ubykh language|Ubykh]], [[Toda language|Toda]]
|-
| <big> {{IPA|[ʃ&nbsp;ʒ]}}</big> || domed postalveolar (palato-alveolar) || [[English language|English]] ''sh, zh'' (may be either laminal or apical)
|-
| <big> {{IPA|[ʃ̻&nbsp;ʒ̻]}}</big> || laminal domed postalveolar || Toda
|-
| <big> {{IPA|[ɕ&nbsp;ʑ]}}</big> || laminal palatalized postalveolar (alveolo-palatal) || Mandarin ''q, j, x'', Polish ''ć, ś, ź, dź'', Ubykh
|-
| <big> {{IPA|[ʆ&nbsp;ʓ]}}</big> || laminal closed postalveolar || Ubykh
|-
| <big> {{IPA|[ʂ&nbsp;ʐ]}}</big> || subapical postalveolar or palatal (subapical retroflex) || Toda
|}