Talk:Liquid consonant

1
Are all liquid consonants approximant as this article states? As far as I know the alveolar trill is a liquid, but it is not an approximant. --AdiJapan 07:27, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

2
Why are the liquid consonants called "liquids"? 137.189.4.1 18:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

3
The article on lateral consonant says that there is also a "dark l". I'm not expert enough to tell if this disagrees with what's written in Liquid consonant but just want to point out in case there is a discrepancy:

English has one lateral phoneme: the lateral approximant /l/, which in many accents has two allophones. One, found before vowels as in lady or fly, is called clear l, pronounced as the alveolar lateral approximant [l] with a "neutral" position of the body of the tongue. The other variant, so-called dark l found before consonants or word-finally, as in bold or tell, is pronounced as the velarized alveolar lateral approximant [ɫ] with the tongue assuming a spoon-like shape with its back part raised, which gives the sound a [w]- or [ʟ]-like resonance. In some languages, like Albanian, those two sounds are different phonemes. East Slavic languages contrast [ɫ] and [lʲ] but do not have a plain [l].

In many British accents (e.g. Cockney), dark [ɫ] may undergo vocalization through the reduction and loss of contact between the tip of the tongue and the alveolar ridge, becoming a rounded back vowel or glide. This process turns tell into something like [tɛɰ]. Crasshopper (talk) 20:56, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

It is a gross oversimplification to say that English /l/ has just two allophones. Clearly, the [l] in a voiced cluster isn't the same as one in an unvoiced cluster. And medial isn't the same as either clear initial or dark post-vocalic.

Etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.241.72.9 (talk) 13:52, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

No definition
There's none here. Liquids are defined as a class consisting of laterals (l-like sounds) and rhotics (r-like sounds) Go to lateral and rhotic, and you find out they're liquids. 150.243.14.35 (talk) 22:23, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Such circularity is hardly unique in the pseudosciences of phonetics and phonology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.241.72.9 (talk) 13:50, 29 May 2018 (UTC)


 * the same circularity exists in hard sciences like physics. What is an electric field? that which surrounds an electric charge? What is an electric charge? that which experiences electromotive force moving through an electric field, or interaction crossed with a magnetic field? There is no more informative definition of it than that. Generally, that's how definitions work. of course, you may disagree, in which case, tell me what is gravity or curvature of space, with no circular definitons? 207.237.14.175 (talk) 18:30, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

4
I quote, "Some, such as Greek, Italian and Serbo-Croatian, have more than two liquid phonemes. All three languages have the set /l/, /ʎ/, /r/, with two laterals and one rhotic." This is wrong Greek has only two liquids, λ[l] and ρ[r] used to have an acc but lazy to log in — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.99.107.132 (talk) 21:05, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Towards a more precise definition of liquid
There seem to be problems with the article that, in a way, always circle back to the lack of a precise definition of "liquid".

 Problem 1 - "Rhotic" 

The very first sentence of the article uses rhotics to define what a liquid is. Which consonants are actually rhotic really depends on the language and doesn't really have a very precise, phonetic definition, as they are mostly defined as "r-like". This definition of rhotic is very much based on writing and not on actual phonological or phonetic analyses, especially when the term is seen through a cross-linguistic lens. As an English-language example, [ɹ] is phonetically described as an approximant, but it's considered rhotic in many European languages that write it with .

Problem 2 - Phonological vs phonetic properties

The claim that liquids often undergo metathesis needs sources. The examples given are very limited in both the geographic or linguistic sense and in terms of phonological environment, as they seem to show metathesis that occurs between consonants that have the same place of articulation or very close ones, which whould explain why the metathesis is really common.

Also, all sonorants can act as nuclei, not just liquids, although I would assume they are more common.

Additionally, there is no mention of any attempt at a purely phonetic or acoustic analysis of liquids. The article seems to be very much focused on the phonological aspects of liquids and not on the phonetic properties that cause those features. An example would be this description in Bruce Hayes's Introductory Phonology (2009, p. 19):

"In terms of speech acoustics, l-like sounds have an exceptionally high third formant (band of acoustic energy), and r-like sounds have an exceptionally low third formant. Non-liquid approximants have third formants that would be expected, given their first and second formants." IlmarisenVasara 14:48, 11 December 2023 (UTC)