The consonant is absent in English, but may be approximated by making [ɡ] but with the tongue body lowered or [w] but with the lips apart. The voiced velar approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic counterpart of the close back unrounded vowel[ɯ]. ⟨ɰ⟩ and ⟨ɯ̯⟩ with the non-syllabic diacritic are used in different transcription systems to represent the same sound.
In some languages, such as Spanish, the voiced velar approximant appears as an allophone of /ɡ/ – see below.
The symbol for the velar approximant originates from ⟨ɯ⟩, but with a vertical line. Compare ⟨u⟩ and ⟨ɥ⟩ for the labio-palatal approximant.
Features
Features of the voiced velar approximant:
Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but not enough to produce a turbulent airstream. The most common type of this approximant is glide or semivowel. The term glide emphasizes the characteristic of movement (or 'glide') of [ɰ] from the [ɯ] vowel position to a following vowel position. The term semivowel emphasizes that, although the sound is vocalic in nature, it is not 'syllabic' (it does not form the nucleus of a syllable). For a description of the approximant consonant variant used e.g. in Spanish, see below.
Sometimes written as [ɯ̯]. Part of an ongoing L-vocalization as an allophone of /ɫ/ before dental consonants. Everywhere else, /ɫ/ is vocalised to /w/ instead. See Bulgarian phonology
Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding. Still used by some older speakers in high register, much more commonly than a fricative [ɣ].[4] Depending on the environment, it corresponds to [w] or [j] in young speakers of contemporary Standard Danish.[5] See Danish phonology
Intervocalic allophone of /ʀ/ for some speakers, unless /ʀ/ is realized as a liaison consonant – then, most often, it is realized as a trill [ʀ].[9] See French phonology
Some languages have a velar approximant that is produced with the body of the tongue bunched up at the velum and simultaneous pharyngealization. This gives rise to a type of retroflex resonance resembling [ɻ].[21] The extension to the IPA recommends the use of the "centralized" diacritic combined with the IPA sign for the alveolar approximant (as in ⟨ɹ̈⟩) to distinguish the bunched realization from the prototypical apical [ɹ], which may be specified as ⟨ɹ̺⟩. Typically, the diacritic is omitted, so that the sound is transcribed simply with ⟨ɹ⟩ or ⟨ɻ⟩ (in broader transcriptions: ⟨r⟩), as if it were a coronal consonant.
In Dutch, this type of r is called Gooise r[ˌɣoːisəˈʔɛr] 'Gooi r'. It is named after het Gooi, a region of the Netherlands where Hilversum (the main centre for television and radio broadcasting) is located.
Features
Features of the voiced velar bunched approximant:
Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but not enough to produce a turbulent airstream. The body of the tongue is bunched up at the velum, rather than just approaching it as it is the case with the prototypical velar approximant.
Pre-velar. Common allophone of /r/ in the syllable coda. The bunching and pharyngealization may be lost in connected speech, resulting in a semivowel such as [j] or [ə̯].[22] See Dutch phonology
Approximant consonant, may be labialized. Possible allophone of /r/ before front vowels. Contrasts with /w/.[23] See Pronunciation of English /r/
Relation with [ɡ] and [ɣ]
Some languages have a voiced velar approximant that is unspecified for rounding, and therefore cannot be considered the semivocalic equivalent of either [ɯ] or its rounded counterpart [u]. Examples of such languages are Catalan, Galician and Spanish, in which the approximant consonant (not semivowel) unspecified for rounding appears as an allophone of /ɡ/.[10]
Eugenio Martínez Celdrán describes the voiced velar approximant consonant as follows:[24]
As for the symbol ⟨ɰ⟩, it is quite evidently inappropriate for representing the Spanish voiced velar approximant consonant. Many authors have pointed out the fact that [ɰ] is not rounded; for example, Pullum & Ladusaw (1986:98) state that 'the sound in question can be described as a semi-vowel (glide) with the properties "high", "back", and "unrounded"'. They even establish an interesting parallelism: 'the sound can be regarded as an unrounded [w]'. It is evident, then, that ⟨ɰ⟩ is not an adequate symbol for Spanish. First of all, because it has never been taken into consideration that there is a diphthong in words like paga 'pay', vago 'lazy', lego 'lay', etc., and, secondly, because this sound is rounded when it precedes rounded vowels. Besides, it would be utterly wrong to transcribe the word jugo 'juice' with ⟨ɰ⟩ *[ˈχuɰo], because the pronunciation of that consonant between two rounded vowels is completely rounded whereas [ɰ] is not. [...]
The symbol I have always proposed is ⟨ɣ̞⟩, the correlate to the other central approximants in Spanish, [β̞ð̞] (Martínez Celdrán 1991, 1996:47). This coincides with Ball & Rahilly (1999:90), whose example for the three approximants is the Spanish word abogado 'lawyer'[...]. Ball & Rahilly too criticise in a footnote the confusion between these symbols: 'The difference between an approximant version of the voiced velar fricative[ɣ̞], and the velar semi-vowel [ɰ] is that the latter requires spread lips, and must have a slightly more open articulatory channel so that it becomes [ɯ] if prolonged' (p. 189, fn. 1).
The symbol ⟨ɣ̞⟩ may not display properly in all browsers. In that case, ⟨ɣ˕⟩ should be substituted. In broader transcriptions,[25] the lowering diacritic may be omitted altogether, so that the symbol is rendered ⟨ɣ⟩, i.e. as if it represented the corresponding fricative.
The velar bunched approximant is typically written with ⟨ɹ⟩ or ⟨ɻ⟩ (in broader transcriptions: ⟨r⟩), none of which capture its place of articulation. The prototypical [ɹ], [ɻ] and [r] are all unspecified for rounding like [ɣ̞].
Bauer, Laurie; Warren, Paul (2007). Illustrations of the IPA: New Zealand English (Cambridge University Press ed.). Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37. pp. 97–102.
Canellada, María Josefa; Madsen, John Kuhlmann (1987), Pronunciación del español: lengua hablada y literaria, Madrid: Castalia, ISBN978-8470394836
Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2003) [First published 1981], The Phonetics of English and Dutch (5th ed.), Leiden: Brill Publishers, ISBN9004103406
Taeldeman, Johan (1979), "Het klankpatroon van de Vlaamse dialecten. Een inventariserend overzicht", Woordenboek van de Vlaamse Dialecten
Urua, Eno-Abasi E. (2004), "Ibibio", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (1): 105–109, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001550
Valenzuela, Pilar M.; Márquez Pinedo, Luis; Maddieson, Ian (2001), "Shipibo", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31 (2): 281–285, doi:10.1017/S0025100301002109
Zimmer, Karl; Orgun, Orhan (1999), "Turkish"(PDF), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 154–158, ISBN0-521-65236-7, archived from the original(PDF) on 2018-07-25, retrieved 2015-11-21
