Voiceless alveolar affricate

• The voiceless alveolar sibilant affricate is the most common type and has an abrupt hissing sound, as the ts in English cats.
• The voiceless alveolar non-sibilant affricate or, using the alveolar diacritic from the Extended IPA, is somewhat similar to the th in some pronunciations of English eighth. It is found as a regional realization of the sequence in some Sicilian dialects of Standard Italian.
• The voiceless alveolar lateral affricate is found in certain languages, such as Cherokee, Icelandic and Nahuatl.
• The voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant affricate, also called apico-alveolar or grave, has a weak hushing sound reminiscent of affricates. It is found e.g. in Basque, where it contrasts with a more conventional non-retracted laminal alveolar affricate.

Voiceless alveolar sibilant affricate

Features

• The stop component of this affricate is laminal alveolar, which means it is articulated with the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge. For simplicity, this affricate is usually called after the sibilant fricative component.
• There are at least three specific variants of the fricative component:
• * Dentalized laminal alveolar, which means it is articulated with the tongue blade very close to the upper front teeth, with the tongue tip resting behind lower front teeth. The hissing effect in this variety of is very strong.
• * Non-retracted alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• * Retracted alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue slightly behind the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal. Acoustically, it is close to or laminal.

  Occurrence

Variable

Dentalized laminal alveolar

Non-retracted alveolar

Voiceless alveolar non-sibilant affricate

Features

Occurrence