Ejective consonant

In producing an ejective, the stylohyoid muscle and digastric muscle contract, causing the hyoid bone and the connected glottis to raise, and the forward articulation (at the velum in the case of [kʼ]) is held, raising air pressure greatly in the mouth so when the oral articulators separate, there is a dramatic burst of air.[1] The Adam's apple may be seen moving when the sound is pronounced. In the languages in which they are more obvious, ejectives are often described as sounding like “spat” consonants, but ejectives are often quite weak. In some contexts and in some languages, they are easy to mistake for tenuis or even voiced stops.[2] These weakly ejective articulations are sometimes called intermediates in older American linguistic literature and are notated with different phonetic symbols: ⟨C!⟩ = strongly ejective, ⟨Cʼ⟩ = weakly ejective. Strong and weak ejectives have not been found to be contrastive in any natural language.

In strict, technical terms, ejectives are glottalic egressive consonants. The most common ejective is [kʼ] even if it is more difficult to produce than other ejectives like [tʼ] or [pʼ] because the auditory distinction between [kʼ] and [k] is greater than with other ejectives and voiceless consonants of the same place of articulation.[3] In proportion to the frequency of uvular consonants, [qʼ] is even more common, as would be expected from the very small oral cavity used to pronounce a voiceless uvular stop. [pʼ], on the other hand, is quite rare. That is the opposite pattern to what is found in the implosive consonants, in which the bilabial is common and the velar is rare.[4]

Ejective fricatives are rare for presumably the same reason: with the air escaping from the mouth while the pressure is being raised, like inflating a leaky bicycle tire, it is harder to distinguish the resulting sound as salient as a [kʼ].

Ejectives occur in about 20% of the world's languages.[3] Ejectives that phonemically contrast with pulmonic consonants occur in about 15% of languages around the world. The occurrence of ejectives often correlates to languages in mountainous regions such as the North American Cordillera, where ejectives are extremely common. They frequently occur throughout the Andes and Maya Mountains. They are also common in the East African Rift and the South African Plateau (see Geography of Africa). In Eurasia they are extremely common in the Caucasus, which forms an island of ejective languages. Elsewhere, they are rare.

Language families that distinguish ejective consonants include:

• Afroasiatic languages, especially in the Cushitic and Omotic branches, and in some languages of the Semitic (Ethio-Semitic and Modern South Arabian) and Chadic branches (e.g. Hausa)
• All three families of the Caucasus: the Northwest Caucasian languages (Circassian, Abkhaz and Ubykh); the Northeast Caucasian languages such as Chechen and Avar; and the Kartvelian languages such as Georgian
• the Athabaskan, Siouan and Salishan families of North America along with the many diverse families of the Pacific Northwest from central California to British Columbia
• Mayan family, as well as neighboring Lencan languages and Xincan languages
• Aymaran family
• the southern varieties of Quechua (Qusqu-Qullaw)
• Puelche and Tehuelche of the Chonan languages
• Alacalufan family
• Gumuz, Meʼen, Tʼwampa and possibly other Nilo-Saharan languages
• Sandawe, Hadza, and the Khoisan families of southern Africa
• Itelmen of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
• Yapese and Waima'a of the Austronesian family

According to the glottalic theory, the Proto-Indo-European language had a series of ejectives (or, in some versions, implosives), but no extant Indo-European language has retained them.[lower-alpha 1] Ejectives are found today in Ossetian and some Armenian dialects only because of influence of the nearby Northeast Caucasian and/or Kartvelian language families.

It had once been predicted that ejectives and implosives would not be found in the same language but both have been found phonemically at several points of articulation in Nilo-Saharan languages (Gumuz, Me'en, and T'wampa), Mayan language (Yucatec), Salishan (Lushootseed), and the Oto-Manguean Mazahua. Nguni languages, such as Zulu have an implosive b alongside a series of allophonically ejective stops. Dahalo of Kenya, has ejectives, implosives, and click consonants.

Non-contrastively, ejectives are found in many varieties of British English, usually replacing word-final fortis plosives in utterance-final or emphatic contexts.[5][6][7]

Almost all ejective consonants in the world's languages are stops or affricates, and all ejective consonants are obstruents. [kʼ] is the most common ejective, and [qʼ] is common among languages with uvulars, [tʼ] less so, and [pʼ] is uncommon. Among affricates, [tsʼ], [tʃʼ], [tɬʼ] are all quite common, and [kxʼ] and [ʈʂʼ] are not unusual ([kxʼ] is particularly common among the Khoisan languages, where it is the ejective equivalent of /k/).

A few languages have ejective fricatives. In some dialects of Hausa, the standard affricate [tsʼ] is a fricative [sʼ]; Ubykh (Northwest Caucasian, now extinct) had an ejective lateral fricative [ɬʼ]; and the related Kabardian also has ejective labiodental and alveolopalatal fricatives, [fʼ], [ʃʼ], and [ɬʼ]. Tlingit is an extreme case, with ejective alveolar, lateral, velar, and uvular fricatives, [sʼ], [ɬʼ], [xʼ], [xʷʼ], [χʼ], [χʷʼ]; it may be the only language with the last type. Upper Necaxa Totonac is unusual and perhaps unique in that it has ejective fricatives (alveolar, lateral, and postalveolar [sʼ], [ʃʼ], [ɬʼ]) but lacks any ejective stop or affricate (Beck 2006). Other languages with ejective fricatives are Yuchi, which some sources analyze as having [ɸʼ], [sʼ], [ʃʼ], and [ɬʼ] (but not the analysis of the Wikipedia article), Keres dialects, with [sʼ], [ʂʼ] and [ɕʼ], and Lakota, with [sʼ], [ʃʼ], and [xʼ] . Amharic is interpreted by many as having an ejective fricative [sʼ], at least historically, but it has been also analyzed as now being a sociolinguistic variant (Takkele Taddese 1992).

An ejective retroflex stop [ʈʼ] is rare. It has been reported from Yawelmani and other Yokuts languages, Tolowa, and Gwich'in.

Because the complete closing of the glottis required to form an ejective makes voicing impossible, the allophonic voicing of ejective phonemes causes them to lose their glottalization; this occurs in Blin (modal voice) and Kabardian (creaky voice). A similar historical sound change also occurred in Veinakh and Lezgic in the Caucasus, and it has been postulated by the glottalic theory for Indo-European.[2] Some Khoisan languages have voiced ejective stops and voiced ejective clicks; however, they actually contain mixed voicing, and the ejective release is voiceless.

Ejective trills aren't attested in any language, even allophonically . An ejective [rʼ] would necessarily be voiceless,[9] but the vibration of the trill, combined with a lack of the intense voiceless airflow of [r̥], gives an impression like that of voicing. Similarly, ejective nasals such as [mʼ, nʼ, ŋʼ] (also necessarily voiceless) are possible.[10][11] (An apostrophe is commonly seen with r, l and nasals, but that is Americanist phonetic notation for a glottalized consonant and does not indicate an ejective.)

Other ejective sonorants are not known to occur. When sonorants are transcribed with an apostrophe in the literature as if they were ejective, they actually involve a different airstream mechanism: they are glottalized consonants and vowels whose glottalization partially or fully interrupts an otherwise normal voiced pulmonic airstream, somewhat like English uh-uh (either vocalic or nasal) pronounced as a single sound. Often the constriction of the larynx causes it to rise in the vocal tract, but this is individual variation and not the initiator of the airflow. Such sounds generally remain voiced.[12]

Yeyi has a set of prenasalized ejectives like /ⁿtʼ, ᵑkʼ, ⁿtsʼ/.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ejectives are indicated with a "modifier letter apostrophe" ⟨ʼ⟩, as in this article. A reversed apostrophe is sometimes used to represent light aspiration, as in Armenian linguistics ⟨p‘ t‘ k‘⟩; this usage is obsolete in the IPA. In other transcription traditions (such as many romanisations of Russian, where it is transliterating the soft sign), the apostrophe represents palatalization: ⟨pʼ⟩ = IPA ⟨pʲ⟩. In some Americanist traditions, an apostrophe indicates weak ejection and an exclamation mark strong ejection: ⟨k̓ , k!⟩. In the IPA, the distinction might be written ⟨kʼ, kʼʼ⟩, but it seems that no language distinguishes degrees of ejection. Transcriptions of the Caucasian languages often utilize combining dots above or below a letter to indicate an ejective.

In alphabets using the Latin script, an IPA-like apostrophe for ejective consonants is common. However, there are other conventions. In Hausa, the hooked letter ƙ is used for /kʼ/. In Zulu and Xhosa, whose ejection is variable between speakers, plain consonant letters are used: p t k ts tsh kr for /pʼ tʼ kʼ tsʼ tʃʼ kxʼ/. In some conventions for Haida and Hadza, double letters are used: tt kk qq ttl tts for /tʼ kʼ qʼ tɬʼ tsʼ/ (Haida) and zz jj dl gg for /tsʼ tʃʼ cʎ̝̊ʼ kxʼ/ (Hadza).

Everett (2013) argues that the geographic correlation between languages with ejectives and mountainous terrains is because of decreased air pressure making ejectives easier to produce, as well as the way ejectives help to reduce water vapor loss. The argument has been criticized as being based on a spurious correlation.[13][14][15]

• Glottalic consonant
• List of phonetics topics

• Beck, David (2006). "The emergence of ejective fricatives in Upper Necaxa Totonac". University of Alberta Working Papers in Linguistics. 1: 1–18.
• Campbell, Lyle. 1973. On Glottalic Consonants. International Journal of American Linguistics 39, 44–46. JSTOR 1264659
• Chirikba, V.A. Aspects of Phonological Typology. Moscow, 1991 (in Russian).
• Everett, Caleb (2013), "Evidence for Direct Geographic Influences on Linguistic Sounds: The Case of Ejectives", PLOS One, 8 (6): e65275, Bibcode:2013PLoSO...865275E, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0065275, PMC 3680446, PMID 23776463
• Fallon, Paul. 2002. The Synchronic and Diachronic Phonology of Ejectives. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-93800-7, ISBN 978-0-415-93800-6.
• Hogan, John T. (1976-07-01). "An Analysis of the Temporal Features of Ejective Consonants". Phonetica. Walter de Gruyter GmbH. 33 (4): 275–284. doi:10.1159/000259776. ISSN 1423-0321. S2CID 144724070.
• Greenberg, Joseph H. (1970), "Some generalizations concerning glottalic consonants, especially implosives.", International Journal of American Linguistics, 36 (2): 123–145, doi:10.1086/465105, S2CID 143225017
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-21411-9
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.
• Lewis, Martin W.; Pereltsvaig, Asya (17 June 2013). "Ejectives, High Altitudes, and Grandiose Linguistic Hypotheses". GeoCurrents. Archived from the original on 17 April 2014.
• Liberman, Mark (14 June 2013). "High-altitude ejectives". Language Log.
• Lindau, Mona (1984). "Phonetic differences in glottalic consonants". Journal of Phonetics. Elsevier BV. 12 (2): 147–155. doi:10.1016/s0095-4470(19)30861-7. ISSN 0095-4470.
• Lindsey, Geoffrey; Hayward, Katrina; Haruna, Andrew (1992). "Hausa Glottalic Consonants: A Laryngographic Study". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 55 (3): 511–527. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00003682. S2CID 143934037.
• Taddese, Takkele (1992). "Are sʼ and tʼ variants of an Amharic variable? A sociolinguistic analysis". Journal of Ethiopian Languages and Literature. 2: 104–21.
• Wier, Thomas (19 June 2013). "Ejectives, Altitude, and the Caucasus as a Linguistic Area". Diversity Linguistics Comment.
• Wright, Richard; Hargus, Sharon; Davis, Katharine (2002). "On the categorization of ejectives: data from Witsuwit'en". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 32: 43–77. doi:10.1017/S0025100302000142. S2CID 145579984.

• Listen to Ejective Consonant
• WALS map of languages with ejectives (blue and purple)