Clicks

Largely restricted to South Africa.

Basic Mechanism (from Ladefoged, Sounds of a Course in Phonetics)

1. Simultaneous dorsal and coronal closures (enclosure)

2. Lowering of the tongue body to cause rarifaction

3. Release of coronal constriction

Types of releases:

dental	k|
lateral	k||
alveolo-palatal	k!

Gestural Composition

• coronal closure
• dorsal closure
• tongue body mid-line lowering

Constraints on Gestural Timing

Which gesture is released first?

Which gestural constriction is formed first?

Electropalatography: view from the palate

By placing an acrylic sheet with embedded electrode over a speaker's palate, we can observe the contact pattern of the tongue against the palate, and how it changes over time.

Here are some examples from English (Hardcastle, Barry, and Clark, 1987):

During a click, we can see a complete seal of the palate by the tongue--tip, sides and rear.

When the tongue body lowers, this sealed cavity is rarified:

Click examples (Zulu, after Thomas, 1997):

k|

k||

k!

Combinations with Laryngeal gestures

Combinations with Velic gestures

Examples from Xhosa