Voiceless palatal plosive
A voiceless palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in some vocal languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is.
If distinction is necessary, a voiceless alveolo-palatal plosive may be transcribed or (advanced, depending on the linguistic analysis of that sound. There is also a para-IPA letter that is used primarily in Sinological phonetic notation.
It is common for the symbol to be used to transcribe a palatalized voiced velar plosive or, as often in the Indo-Aryan languages, a postalveolar affricate - especially in phonemic notation. The latter may be appropriate when the place of articulation needs to be specified but the distinction between plosive and affricate is not contrastive, or simply for a cleaner transcription.
Features
Features of a voiceless palatal stop:- * The otherwise identical post-palatal variant is articulated slightly behind the hard palate, making it sound closer to the velar.
- * Alveolo-palatal variant is articulated also with the blade of the tongue at or behind the alveolar ridge.
Occurrence
Palatal or alveolo-palatal
Post-palatal
There is also a voiceless post-palatal or pre-velar plosive in some languages, which is articulated slightly more back compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical palatal consonant, though not as back as the prototypical velar consonant. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as or .Especially in broad transcription, a voiceless post-palatal plosive may be transcribed as a palatalized voiceless velar plosive (.