implosive consonant

During the occlusion of the stop, pulling the glottis downward rarefies the air in the vocal tract. The stop is then released. In languages whose implosives are particularly salient, that may result in air rushing into the mouth before it flows out again with the next vowel. To take in air sharply in that way is to implode a sound."Implode" (2. [with obj.] [phonetic terminology]: utter or pronounce (a consonant) with a sharp intake of air.) New Oxford American Dictionary 3rd ed., 2010

However, probably more typically, there is no movement of air at all, which contrasts with the burst of the pulmonary plosives. This is the case with many of the Kru languages, for example. That means that implosives are phonetically sonorants (not obstruents) as the concept of sonorant is usually defined. However, implosives can phonologically pattern as both; that is, they may be phonological sonorants or obstruents depending on the language.

George N. Clements (2002) actually proposes that implosives are phonologically neither obstruents nor sonorants.{{cite web |last1=Clements |first1=George |title=Explosives, Implosives, and Nonexplosives: the Linguistic Function of Air Pressure Differences in Stops |url=http://nickclements.free.fr/publications/2002a.pdf |access-date=19 November 2024}}

The vast majority of implosive consonants are voiced, so the glottis is only partially closed. Because the airflow required for voicing reduces the vacuum being created in the mouth, implosives are easiest to make with a large oral cavity.{{Citation needed|date=August 2020|reason=While the claim that the vast majority of implosives are voiced is pretty well-known, a source is needed for how their mechanics make them easier or harder to produce}}

Implosives are most often voiced stops, occasionally voiceless stops. Individual tokens of glottalized sonorants (nasals, trills, laterals, etc.) may also be pronounced with a lowering of the glottis by some individuals, occasionally to the extent that they are noticeably implosive, but no language is known where implosion is a general characteristic of such sounds.Esling, John H.; Moisik, Scott R.; Benner, Allison; Crevier-Buchman, Lise (2019). Voice Quality: The Laryngeal Articulator Model. Cambridge University Press.

The attested voiced implosive stops are the following:

• voiced bilabial implosive {{IPA|[ɓ]}}
• voiced alveolar implosive {{IPA|[ɗ]}}
• voiced retroflex implosive {{IPA|[ᶑ]}} (letter is 'implicit' in the IPA)
• voiced palatal implosive {{IPA|[ʄ]}}
• voiced velar implosive {{IPA|[ɠ]}}
• voiced uvular implosive {{IPA|[ʛ]}}
• voiced labial–velar implosive {{IPA|[ɠ͜ɓ]}}

There are no IPA symbols for implosive fricatives, and no confirmed cases of implosive fricatives or affricates. Implosive affricates are occasionally reported, but further investigation typically reveals that such sounds are either stops or not implosive. For example, the Swahili j has an implosive allophone, but the distinction is pulmonic affricate {{IPA|[dʒ]}} vs implosive stop {{IPA|[ʄ]}}.Contini-Morava, Ellen. 1997. Swahili Phonology. In Kaye, Alan S. (ed.), Phonologies of Asia and Africa 2, 841–860. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. Similarly, implosive {{IPA|[ɗʒ]}} has been reported from Roglai, but it has also been analyzed as {{IPA|[ʄ]}},Lee Ernest. 1966. Proto-Chamic phonologic word and vocabulary. PhD dissertation, Indiana University at Bloomington. and the implosive affricates reported from Gitxsan turn out to be lenis ejectives that are sometimes perceived as voiced.Gitxsan "does not have voiced implosive stops; rather, it has lax glottalized stops that display a creaky voice quality at the margin of the vowel in pretonic (and syllable-final) environments." — Bruce Rigsby & John Ingram (1990) "Obstruent Voicing and Glottalic Obstruents in Gitksan". International Journal of American Linguistics, vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 251–263.

Consonants variously called "voiceless implosives," "implosives with glottal closure,"{{SOWL}} or "reverse ejectives" involve a slightly different airstream mechanism, purely glottalic ingressive. The glottis is closed so no pulmonic airstream is possible. The IPA once dedicated symbols {{angbr IPA|ƥ ƭ 𝼉 ƈ ƙ ʠ ƙ͜ƥ}} to such sounds. These were withdrawn in 1993 and replaced with a voiceless diacritic, {{angbr IPA|ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ᶑ̥ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥ ɠ̊͜ɓ̥}}, though {{angbr IPA|ƥ ƭ ƈ}} remain in Serer orthography. Some authors disagree with the analysis implied by the IPA voiceless diacritic and retain the dedicated voiceless letters, or, occasionally, transcribe them instead as ingressive ejectives {{angbr IPA|pʼ↓ tʼ↓ ʈʼ↓ cʼ↓ kʼ↓ qʼ↓ k͡pʼ↓}}. The IPA had also suggested the possibility of a superscript left pointer, {{angbr IPA|p^˂ t^˂ ʈ^˂ c^˂ k^˂ q^˂ k͡p^˂}}, which might also be used for fricatives, but it was not approved by the membership.

The attested voiceless implosive stops are:

• voiceless bilabial implosive {{IPA|[ɓ̥] or [ƥ]}}
• voiceless alveolar implosive {{IPA|[ɗ̥ ] or [ƭ]}}
• voiceless retroflex implosive {{IPA|[ᶑ̥ ] or [𝼉]}}
• voiceless palatal implosive {{IPA|[ʄ̥ ] or [ƈ ]}}
• voiceless velar implosive {{IPA|[ɠ̊ ] or [ƙ]}} (may be paraphonemic in English)
• voiceless uvular implosive {{IPA|[ʛ̥ ] or [ʠ ]}}
• voiceless labial–velar implosive {{IPA|[ɠ̊͜ɓ̥] or, [ƙ͜ƥ]}}

In the world's languages, the occurrence of implosives shows a strong cline from front to back points of articulation. Bilabial {{IPA|[ɓ]}} is the most common implosive. It is very rarely lacking in the inventory of languages which have implosive stops. On the other hand, implosives with a back articulation (such as velar {{IPA|[ɠ]}}) occur much less frequently; apart from a few exceptions, the presence of the velar implosive {{IPA|[ɠ]}} goes along with the presence of implosives further forward.{{cite journal |last=Greenberg |first=Joseph H. |year=1970 |title=Some Generalizations concerning Glottalic Consonants, Especially Implosives |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=123–145 |doi=10.1086/465105 |jstor=1264671|s2cid=143225017 }} One of the few languages with a farther back implosive (specifically the alveolar one {{IPA|[ɗ]}}), and without the bilabial implosive, is Yali, a Dani language spoken on the Indonesian side of New Guinea.{{Cite book |last=Fahner |first=Christiaan |title=The Morphology of Yali and Dani: A Descriptive and Comparative Analysis |year=1979}}

Implosives are widespread among the languages of Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia and are found in a few languages of the Amazon Basin. They are rarely reported elsewhere but occur in scattered languages such as the Mayan languages in North America, Saraiki and Sindhi in the Indian subcontinent. They appear to be entirely absent as phonemes from Europe and northern Asia and from Australia, even from the Australian ceremonial language Damin, which uses every other possible airstream mechanism besides percussives. However, Alpher (1977) reports that the Nhangu language of Australia may actually contain implosives, though more research is needed to determine the true nature of these sounds. Implosives may occasionally occur phonetically in some European languages: For instance, in some northern dialects of Ingrian, intervocalic bilabial stops may be realised as the implosive {{IPA|[ɓ]}} or {{IPA|[ɓ̥]}}.{{cite book|title=Фонологические системы Ижорских диалектов|trans-title=The phonological systems of the Ingrian dialects|author=N. V. Kuznetsova|year=2009|publisher=Institute for Linguistic Studies (dissertation)|page=181}}

Fully voiced stops are slightly implosive in a number of other languages, but this is not often described explicitly if there is no contrast with modal-voiced plosives. This situation occurs from Maidu to Thai to many Bantu languages, including Swahili.

Sindhi and Saraiki have an unusually large number of contrastive implosives, with {{IPA|/ɓ ᶑ  ʄ ɠ/}}.Swahili has a similar {{IPA|/ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ/}}, without contrasting with voiced pulmonic stops, unlike in Sindhi. Although Sindhi has a dental–retroflex distinction in its plosives, with {{IPA|/b d ɖ  ɟ ɡ/}}, the contrast is neutralized in the implosives. A contrastive retroflex implosive {{IPA|/ᶑ/}} may also occur in Ngad'a, a language spoken in Flores, Indonesia,Djawanai, Stephanus. (1977). A description of the basic phonology of Nga'da and the treatment of borrowings. NUSA linguistic studies in Indonesian and languages in Indonesia, 5, 10-18 and occurs in Wadiyara Koli, a language spoken in India and Pakistan where it contrasts with the voiced alveolar implosive {{IPA|/ɗ/}}.{{cite thesis |last=ZUBAIR |first=SAEED |title=A Phonological Description of Wadiyara, a Language Spoken in Pakistan |type=MA |publisher=Payap University |url=https://www.ialtrust.org/resources/A-Phonological-Description-of-Wadiyari.pdf |access-date=9 October 2020 |date=April 2016 |page=2}}

More examples can be found in the articles on individual implosives.

Voiceless implosives are quite rare, but are found in languages as varied as the Owere dialect of Igbo in Nigeria ({{IPAslink|ƥ}} {{IPAslink|ƭ}}), Krongo in Sudan, the Uzere dialect of Isoko, the closely related Lendu and Ngiti languages in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Serer in Senegal ({{IPA|/ƥ ƭ {{IPAplink|ƈ}}/}}), and some dialects of the Poqomchi’ and Quiche languages in Guatemala ({{IPA|/ƥ ƭ/}}). Owere Igbo has a seven-way contrast among bilabial stops, {{IPA|/pʰ p ƥ bʱ b ɓ m/}}, and its alveolar stops are similar. The voiceless velar implosive {{IPAblink|ƙ}} occurs marginally in Uspantek{{Cite journal |last1=Bennett |first1=Ryan |last2=Harvey |first2=Meg |last3=Henderson |first3=Robert |last4=Méndez López |first4=Tomás Alberto |date=September 2022 |title=The phonetics and phonology of Uspanteko (Mayan) |journal=Language and Linguistics Compass |language=en |volume=16 |issue=9 |doi=10.1111/lnc3.12467 |s2cid=252453913 |issn=1749-818X|doi-access=free }} and {{IPA|/ʠ/}} occurs in Mam, Kaqchikel, and Uspantek.{{Cite book |last=England |first=Nora C. |title=A grammar of Mam, a Mayan language |date=1983 |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=0292729278 |location=Austin |oclc=748935484}} Lendu has been claimed to have voiceless {{IPA|/ƥ ƭ ƈ/}}, but they may actually be creaky-voiced implosives. The voiceless labial–velar implosive {{IPA|[ƙ͜ƥ]}} also may occur in Central Igbo.Bickford & Floyd (2006) Articulatory Phonetics{{cite book |last=Clark |first=Mary M. |title=The Tonal System of Igbo |year=1990 |isbn=9783110130416 |doi=10.1515/9783110869095}}

Some English speakers use a voiceless velar implosive {{IPA|[ƙ]}} to imitate the "glug-glug" sound of liquid being poured from a bottle, but others use a voiced implosive {{IPA|[ɠ]}}.Pike, Phonetics, 1943:40

{{Reflist}}

{{Wiktionary|implosive}}

• {{Cite book | publisher = Mouton de Gruyter | volume = 7 | pages = 299–350 | last = Clements | first = George N. |author2=Sylvester Osu | title = Laboratory Phonology | chapter = Explosives, Implosives, and Nonexplosives: the Linguistic Function of Air Pressure Differences in Stops | location = Berlin | access-date = 2010-01-08 | year = 2002 | chapter-url = http://nickclements.free.fr/publications/2002a.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720224744/http://nickclements.free.fr/publications/2002a.pdf |archive-date=2011-07-20}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Demolin |first1=Didier |last2=Ngonga-Ke-Mbembe |first2=Hubert |last3=Soquet |first3=Alain |year=2002 |title=Phonetic characteristics of an unexploded palatal implosive in Hendo |journal=Journal of the International Phonetic Association |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=1–15 |doi=10.1017/S0025100302000117 |jstor=44526273|s2cid=143737389 }}
• {{SOWL}}
• {{cite book |last=Maddieson |first=Ian |year=1984 |title=Patterns of sounds |series=Cambridge studies in speech science and communication |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511753459|isbn=978-0-521-26536-2 }}

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