Consonants
Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Dental/ Alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n2 | ɲ4 | ŋ | ||
Stop | p | t1 | (c) ~ k | |||
b | d1 | (ɟ) ~ ɡ | ||||
Affricate | ts | tʃ5 | ||||
dz | dʒ5 | |||||
Fricative | f | s3 | ʃ5 | |||
(v) | z3 | ʒ5 | ||||
Trill | r3 | |||||
Tap | ɾ2 | |||||
Approximant | j | w | ||||
Lateral | l2 | ʎ4 |
- ^1 /t/, /d/ are denti-alveolar.
- ^2 /n/, /l/, /ɾ/ are front alveolar.
- ^3 /s/, /z/, /r/ are postalveolar.
- ^4 /ʎ/, /ɲ/ are "front alveolo-palatal".
- ^5 There is some confusion in the literature about the precise phonetic characteristics of /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/. some sources generally describe them as "postalveolar." Others describe them as "back alveolo-palatal", implying that the characters ⟨ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ⟩ would be more accurate. However, in all literature on Catalan, only the characters for palato-alveolar affricates and fricatives are used, even when the same sources use ⟨ɕ ʑ⟩ for other languages like Polish and Chinese.
- Voiced obstruents undergo final-obstruent devoicing so that e.g. fred ('cold', m. s.) is pronounced with, while fredes ('cold', f. pl.) is pronounced with .
Read more about this topic: Catalan Phonology