Lateral consonant
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| Manners of articulation |
| Obstruent |
| Click |
| Plosive |
| Ejective |
| Implosive |
| Affricate |
| Fricative |
| Sibilant |
| Sonorant |
| Nasal |
| Flaps/Tap |
| Trill |
| Approximant |
| Liquid |
| Vowel |
| Semivowel |
| Lateral |
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Laterals are "L"-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue.
Most commonly the tip of the tongue makes contact with the upper teeth (see dental consonant) or the upper gum (the alveolar ridge) just behind the teeth (see alveolar consonant). The most common laterals are approximants and belong to the class of liquids.
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Laterals in various languages
English has a lateral approximant phoneme Template:IPA, which in many accents has two allophones. One, found before vowels as in lady or fly, is called clear l, pronounced as the alveolar lateral approximant Template:IPA with a "neutral" position of the body of the tongue. The other variant, so-called dark l found before consonants or word-finally, as in bold or tell, is pronounced as the velarized alveolar lateral approximant Template:IPA with the tongue assuming a spoon-like shape with its back part raised, which gives the sound a Template:IPA- or Template:IPA-like resonance.
In many British accents (e.g. London English), dark Template:IPA may undergo vocalization through the reduction and loss of contact between the tip of the tongue the alveolar ridge, becoming a rounded back vowel or glide. This process turns tell into something like Template:IPA.
A similar process happened in Brazilian Portuguese and in Old French, resulting in [w], whence Modern French sauce as compared with Spanish salsa.
In central and Venice dialects of Vèneto intervocalic /l/ has turned into a semivocalic [e], so that the written word la bala is pronouced Template:IPA.
Many aboriginal Australian languages have a series of three or four lateral approximants, as do various dialects of Irish. Rarer lateral consonants include the retroflex laterals that can be found in most Indic languages; and the sound of Welsh ll, the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative Template:IPA that is also found in Zulu and many Native American languages. (Note that the voiceless laterals in Tibetan are voiceless approximants, not fricatives.) Many of these languages also have lateral affricates. Some languages have palatal or velar voiceless lateral fricatives or affricates, such as Dahalo and Zulu, or retroflex lateral flaps, but the IPA has no symbols for these sounds. However, appropriate symbols are easy to make by adding a lateral-fricative belt or retroflex hook to the symbol for the corresponding lateral approximant (see below). Failing that, raising and devoicing diacritics are added to the approximant.
A large number of lateral click consonants, 17, occur in !Xóõ.
List of laterals
- Alveolar lateral approximant Template:IPA
- Velarized alveolar lateral approximant Template:IPA
- Retroflex lateral approximant Template:IPA
- Palatal lateral approximant Template:IPA
- Velar lateral approximant Template:IPA
- Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative Template:IPA
- Voiced alveolar lateral fricative Template:IPA
- Voiceless retroflex lateral fricative Template:IPA (in Toda)
- Voiceless palatal lateral fricative Template:IPA (in Dahalo) [needs additional raising diacritic]
- Voiceless velar lateral fricative Template:IPA (in Archi)
- Alveolar lateral flap Template:IPA
- Retroflex lateral flap Template:IPA
- Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate Template:IPA
- Aspirated alveolar lateral affricate Template:IPA
- Ejective alveolar lateral affricate Template:IPA
- Voiced alveolar lateral affricate Template:IPA
- Voiceless palatal lateral affricate Template:IPA (in Hadza)
- Ejective palatal lateral affricate Template:IPA (in Dahalo), Template:IPA (in Hadza)
- Ejective velar lateral affricate Template:IPA (in Zulu)
Other symbols
The symbol for the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative forms the basis for the occasional ad hoc symbols for other voiceless lateral fricatives: retroflex, palatal, velar (the latter two only known from affricates):
The symbol for the alveolar lateral flap is the basis for the expected symbol for the retroflex lateral flap:
Such symbols are rare, but are becoming more common now that font-editing software has become accessible. Note however that since they are not sanctioned by the IPA, there are no Unicode values for them.
See also
Template:Consonantsde:Lateral (Phonetik) fr:Consonne latérale ga:Consan cliathánach ko:설측음 he:עיצורים צדיים ja:側面音 pl:Spółgłoska boczna ro:Consoană laterală sv:Lateral zh:边音