This page gathers the 316 dictionary entries belonging to the domain “Phonetics”, as labelled by Wiktionary. Each word leads to its full entry: definitions, etymology, pronunciation, examples. Page 1 of 3: from “acute” to “formant”.
- acute verb To give an acute sound to.
- advanced adj Pronounced farther to the front of the vocal tract.
- advanced tongue root noun An articulation that involves the expansion of the pharyngeal cavity by moving the base of the tongue forward and often lowering the larynx…
- adytal noun An adytal consonant.
- affricate noun A single speech sound produced combining a plosive and a fricative.
- affrication noun Becoming an affricate sound.
- aftersound noun A weaker sound that immediately follows a more salient one, such as the second, less prominent vowel sound in a falling diphthong.
- ai noun Initialism of articulatory index.
- alveolar noun An alveolar consonant.
- alveolo-palatal adj Of or relating to those consonants that are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants.
- alveopalatal adj Synonym of palato-alveolar.
- ambisyllabicity noun The property of a consonant being analysed as acting simultaneously as the coda of one syllable and the onset of the following syllable, as…
- Americanist adj Of or relating to a phonetic notation developed for transcription of Native American and European languages. See Americanist phonetic…
- antepenultimate noun The syllable that comes two before the last in a word.
- anterior adj Pronounced with an obstruction located in front of the palato-alveolar region of the mouth, e.g. b, p, d, t.
- antiformant noun A band of frequencies, in a sound spectrum, whose intensity has been weakened; these exist in nasal sounds as the nasal cavities absorb…
- antiphony noun Synonym of apophony (“contrastive vowel modification”).
- apheresis noun Elision, suppression, or complete loss of a letter or sound (syllable) from the beginning of a word, such as the development of special…
- aphetic adj Of, relating to, or formed by aphesis.
- apical noun A sound produced by obstructing the air passage with the tip of the tongue.
- apicodental adj Made with the apex of the tongue touching the upper front of the teeth, as in apicodental stop.
- apocope noun The loss or omission of the last vowel in a word, together with any consonants that follow it.
- apophony noun Modification of an internal vowel sound in a word or linguistic root, especially so as to establish a lexical distinction.
- approximant noun A consonant sound made by slightly narrowing the vocal tract, while still allowing a smooth flow of air. Liquids and glides are…
- articulable adj Capable of being pronounced or expressed distinctly in speech.
- articulation noun The mechanism by which a sound is formed in the vocal tract.
- articulator noun Any organ in the vocal tract used to articulate, produce speech.
- asper noun Rough breathing; a mark (#) indicating that part of a word is aspirated, or pronounced with h before it.
- aspirated adj Pronounced with an audible breath, a brief expulsion of air at the end of the sound.
- aspirated h noun Aspiration of a glottal consonant.
- aspiration noun A burst of air that follows the release of some consonants.
- assibilate verb To change into or pronounce with the accompaniment of a sibilant sound or sounds.
- atonic noun A sound with lack of tone or vocality.
- back adj Pronounced with the highest part of the body of the tongue toward the back of the mouth, near the soft palate (most often describing a…
- backness noun Quality of being a back vowel.
- barred i noun A close central unrounded vowel sound, represented as /ɨ/ in IPA.
- bidental adj articulated with both the upper and lower teeth.
- bilabial adj Articulated with both lips.
- blade noun The part of the tongue just behind the tip, used to make laminal consonants.
- breath adj voiceless, surd; contrasting with voice (breath sounds, voice sounds)
- breathed adj voiceless, contrasting with voiced
- breathy voice noun A type of phonation where the vocal cords are adjusted while vibrating in a way that produces a whispering sound.
- buccalization noun The process of a speech sound becoming buccal.
- buccalize verb To make or become buccal.
- cardinal vowel noun a vowel sound produced when the tongue is in an extreme position, either front or back, high or low.
- catch noun A stoppage of breath, resembling a slight cough.
- centralized adj Moved toward the center of the vowel space: [ë] is less front than [e], though not necessarily central; similarly, [ö] is less back than…
- checked tone noun Synonym of entering tone.
- click noun An ingressive sound made by coarticulating a velar or uvular closure with another closure.
- close adj Articulated with the tongue body relatively close to the hard palate.
- close-mid adj pronounced with the tongue in a position approximately two-thirds of the way between an open and a close vowel
- closed syllable noun A syllable that ends in a stop consonant (such as /p/, /t/, /k/) or a glottal stop, forcing the vowel to be short and abrupt.
- cluster noun A pronounceable group of consonants that occur together: a consonant cluster.
- coarticulate verb To articulate a speech sound at two different places of articulation simultaneously, as in the labiovelar approximant [w].
- complement noun A phonetic complement is a graphic element that modifies another, such as (in Linear B script) a small syllabogram that is attached to a…
- complementary distribution noun The distribution of phones in their respective phonetic environments such that one never appears in the same phonetic context as the other.
- consonant noun A sound that results from the passage of air through restrictions of the oral cavity; any sound that is not the dominant sound of a…
- continuant noun A linguistic sound other than a stop.
- coronal adj Relating to a sound made with the tip or blade of the tongue.
- crasis noun The contraction of a vowel or diphthong at the end of a word with a vowel or diphthong at the start of the following word.
- CV noun Initialism of cardinal vowel.
- deaffrication noun The reverse process of affrication; the process of turning an affricate into a plosive or a fricative.
- degemination noun The inverse process of gemination, when a spoken long consonant is pronounced for an audibly shorter period.
- delabialize verb To make into a non-labial sound.
- delenite verb To undergo delenition.
- delenition noun The reversal of lenition; fortition in a context where lenition previously occurred or might otherwise be expected.
- dental noun A dental sound.
- dental fricative noun The phoneme produced when the tongue touches the upper teeth and air is blown. It can be voiced (ð) or unvoiced (θ).
- dentialveolar adj Articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and upper teeth.
- dentilabialize verb Of Middle Chinese initial consonants /p/, /pʰ/, /b/, and /m/: to develop into /f/, /fʰ/, /v/, and /ʋ/ (or further into /f/, /w/, etc).
- dentolabial adj Articulated with the upper lip and lower teeth.
- depalatalize verb To modify (a sound) so that it is no longer palatal or phonetically palatalized.
- devocalize verb To make toneless; to deprive of vowel quality.
- devoice verb To pronounce a sound with little or no vibration of the vocal cords, especially a sound that is normally pronounced with such vibration…
- diatopic adj Occurring over or changing with space; geographic.
- diphthongize verb To change to a diphthong, as by inserting or removing a vowel.
- dissimilation noun A phenomenon where one of a pair of similar adjacent consonant or vowel sounds in a word becomes less similar.
- domal adj Retroflex or sometimes palatal.
- down tack noun The IPA diacritic of primary articulation: ⟨˕⟩, used to denote a lowered phone; for vowels, the diacritic denotes a slightly more open…
- downdrift noun A lowering (over time) of the pitch of the tones of a tonal language.
- ectasis noun The lengthening of a syllable from short to long.
- egressive noun A speech sound in which the air stream is created by pushing air out through the mouth or nose.
- ejective noun A nonpulmonic consonant formed by squeezing air trapped between the glottis and an articulator further forward, and releasing it suddenly.
- endpoint verb To detect the endpoint of an utterance.
- epenthesis noun The insertion of a phoneme, letter, or syllable into a word, usually to satisfy the phonological constraints of a language or poetic…
- epenthetic adj Of or pertaining to epenthesis.
- epiglottal noun An epiglottal consonant.
- epiglottopharyngeal adj Being or involving a type of pharyngeal articulation in which the aryepiglottic folds and epiglottis are brought together and retracted…
- epsilon noun In IPA, the phonetic symbol ɛ that represents the open-mid front unrounded vowel.
- excrescence noun The epenthesis of a consonant, e.g., warmth as [ˈwɔrmpθ] (adding a [p] between [m] and [θ]), or -t (Etymology 2).
- excursion noun A deviation in pitch, for example in the syllables of enthusiastic speech.
- explosive adj Synonym of plosive.
- fanqie noun In traditional Chinese lexicography, a method of indicating the pronunciation of a character by using two other characters, each giving…
- faucal noun A sound produced in the fauces.
- faucalization adj Simultaneous ontraction the palatoglossus and palatopharyngeus muscles, which has the effects of: vertically expanding and laterally…
- faucalize verb To simultaneously contract the palatoglossus and palatopharyngeus muscles, which have the effects of: vertically expanding and laterally…
- faucalized adj Pronounced with vertical expansion of the pharyngeal cavity due to the lowering of the larynx with respect to the pharynx.
- flap verb To pronounce (something) as a flap consonant.
- flat adj Not diphthongal; without variation in height or backness.
- formant noun A band of frequencies in a sound spectrum that have greater intensity and determine the quality of a sound, especially the characteristic…