Emphatic consonant

In Semitic linguistics, an emphatic consonant is an obstruent consonant which originally contrasted with series of both voiced and voiceless obstruents. In specific Semitic languages, the members of this series may be realized as uvularized or pharyngealized, velarized, ejective, or plain voiced or voiceless consonants. It is also used, to a lesser extent, to describe cognate series in other Afro-Asiatic languages, where they are typically realized as either ejective or implosive consonants.

In Semitic studies, they are commonly transcribed using the convention of placing a dot under the closest plain obstruent consonant in the Latin alphabet. With respect to particular Semitic and Afro-Asiatic languages, this term describes the particular phonetic feature which distinguishes these consonants from other consonants. Thus, in Arabic emphasis is synonymous with a secondary articulation involving retraction of the dorsum or root of the tongue, which has variously been described as velarization or pharyngealization depending on where the locus of the retraction is assumed to be. Original emphatic k developed into a voiceless uvular stop in most Semitic languages; stricly speaking, it is thus not an emphatic version of k anymore, but rather a completely different consonant. (Accordingly, another common transcription in Semitic languages is q).

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