Welsh phonologyThe phonology of Welsh is characterised by a number of sounds that do not occur in English and are rare in European languages, such as the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [ɬ] and several voiceless sonorants (nasals and liquids), some of which result from consonant mutation. Stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable in polysyllabic words, while the word-final unstressed syllable receives a higher pitch than the stressed syllable. Welsh has the following consonant phonemes: Symbols in parentheses are either allophones, or found only in loanwords.
X-SAMPAX-SAMPA (en anglais eXtended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet) est une variante de SAMPA développée en 1995 par John C. Wells, professeur de phonétique à l'Université de Londres. Ce jeu de caractères phonétiques utilisable sur ordinateur utilisant les caractères ASCII 7-bits imprimables fut conçu pour unifier les différents alphabets SAMPA et les étendre pour couvrir tout l'alphabet phonétique international (API). Les symboles de l'API qui correspondent à des minuscules latines ont la même valeur en X-SAMPA.
Avancement ou rétraction de la racine de la langueEn phonétique articulatoire, l'avancement (ou avancée) de la racine de la langue (ou de la racine linguale), également désigné sous le sigle ATR (de l'anglais Advanced tongue root), est une expansion de la cavité pharyngeale provoquée par l’avancement de la racine de la langue vers (souvent par l’abaissement) de larynx pendant la prononciation d’une voyelle. L'abaissement du larynx provoque parfois le murmure. L'absence de cette propriété est elle-même dénommée sous le nom de rétraction (ou recul) de la racine de la langue (ou de la racine linguale).
Contour (linguistics)In phonetics, contour describes speech sounds that behave as single segments but make an internal transition from one quality, place, or manner to another. Such sounds may be tones, vowels, or consonants. Many tone languages have contour tones, which move from one level to another. For example, Mandarin Chinese has four lexical tones. The high tone is level, without contour; the falling tone is a contour from high pitch to low; the rising tone a contour from mid pitch to high, and, when spoken in isolation, the low tone takes on a dipping contour, mid to low and then to high pitch.
Phonemic contrastPhonemic contrast refers to a minimal phonetic difference, that is, small differences in speech sounds, that makes a difference in how the sound is perceived by listeners, and can therefore lead to different mental lexical entries for words. For example, whether a sound is voiced or unvoiced (consider /b/ and /p/ in English) matters for how a sound is perceived in many languages, such that changing this phonetic feature can yield a different word (consider bat and pat in English); see Phoneme.
