Voiced palatal lateral fricative

A voiced palatal lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʎ̝⟩, though in extIPA ⟨𝼆̬⟩ is preferred.

This sound is not known to occur as a phoneme in any language, but it does occur as an allophone of /ʎ/ in Italian, Spanish and Jebero.[1][2]

Features of a voiced palatal lateral fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is palatal, which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised to the hard palate.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

A voiced post-palatal or pre-velar lateral fricative can be found in Archi, a Northeast Caucasian language of Dagestan, in which it is clearly a fricative and articulated further back than typical palatals, but further forward than typical velars in most languages.[3]

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is post-palatal (or pre-velar; also called palato-velar, retracted palatal, backed palatal, advanced velar or fronted velar), which means it is articulated between the position of palatal consonants and velar consonants. Palatalized velar consonants may be the same, but "palatalized" may also simply mean a palatal approximant-like release.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

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