Pharyngalisation

The pharyngalisation is a secondary feature of Articulation of the sounds of a language. This feature, much of other secondary articulations, is regarded as a feature accompanying the vowels.

It is found frequently associated with the consonants, in languages such as the Arab (all the dialects of Arabic do not use this articulation). One finds in the Arabic handbooks the term of emphatic consonant. In this language, one opposes the consonants " simples" and their alternative " emphatique". Anisi the sounds T , D , S have a emphatic alternative. In descriptive phonetics, it is acted in fact of a pharyngalisation.

Let us specify however that the term emphatic in the current description of the Semitic languages always does not indicate same reality. Indeed, in Hebrew, the emphatic consonants are glottalized consonants (cf Glottalisation).

From an articulatory point of view, the consonant is jointly marked with a constriction on the level of the pharynx. This particular movement of the pharynx is found in two consonants of Arabic, the fricative pharyngal ones.

It seems that one can more or less distinguish according to the languages from the articulations " hautes" or " basses".

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