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Article published In:
Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area
Vol. 40:1 (2017) ► pp.1–39

The case for alveolar fricative rhotics with evidence from Nusu

| Payap University
| Payap University

Cross-linguistically, fricatives are the rarest types of rhotics, found in a few African and European languages (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996) and as allophones in some Romance languages (Jesus & Shadle 2005; Recasens 2002; Bradley 2006; Colantoni 2006). Acoustic data from Nusu, phonotactic reasoning, and a cognate comparison demonstrate the presence of alveolar fricative rhotics in Tibeto-Burman. The Nusu rhotic appears in syllable-initial position as the first or second consonant and can be realized as alveolar approximants [ɹ] or [ɹʲ], non-sibilant voiced and voiceless fricatives [ɹ̝, ɹ̥], as well as voiced sibilant [ʐ]. In other studies on Nusu, these fricative rhotics have sometimes been reported as retroflex voiced sibilants (Sun & Lu 1986; Fu 1991), but intra-speaker and cross-variety comparison point to classification as rhotics. Evidence from other Tibeto-Burman languages suggests that alveolar fricative rhotics are not limited to Nusu. Together these data challenge the tradition of generally interpreting alveolar fricatives as sibilants.

Keywords: Nusu, rhotics, fricatives, sibilants
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Phonological evidence for a Nusu rhotic
    • 2.1Phonotactic evidence
    • 2.2Shared phonetic features
  • 3.Acoustic distinctions of approximants, fricatives, and sibilants
    • 3.1Approximant vs. fricative
    • 3.2Fricative vs. sibilant
  • 4.Phonetic realizations of the Nusu rhotic
    • 4.1Approximants
    • 4.2Fricatives
    • 4.3Distinction from sibilants
  • 5.Further evidence for fricative rhotics in Tibeto-Burman
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References


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Published online: 3 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.40.1.01ike
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