Secondary articulation

Secondary articulation refers to co-articulated consonants where the two articulations are not of the same manner. The approximant-like secondary articulation is weaker than the primary, and colors it rather than obscuring it. For example, the voiceless labialized velar plosive IPA| [kʷ] has only a single stop articulation, velar [k] , with a simultaneous [w] -like rounding of the lips, and is usually heard as a kind of [k] . This is in contrast to the doubly articulated labial-velar consonant IPA| [k͡p] , which has two equal stop articulations at the velum and lips.

There are a number of secondary articulations. The most frequently encountered are labialization (such as IPA| [kʷ] ), palatalization (such as the Russian "soft" consonant IPA| [pʲ] ), velarization (such as the English "dark" L IPA| [lˠ] ), and pharyngealization (such as the Arabic "emphatic" consonant IPA| [tˤ] ).

Although the symbol for secondary articulation is a superscript written "after" the primary consonant, this is misleading, as they are pronounced simultaneously. Since secondary articulation has a strong effect on surrounding vowels, it will often seem that it precedes the consonant, or both precedes and follows it. For this reason, the IPA symbols for labialization and palatalization were for a time placed directly "under" the consonant (as IPA| [k̫] and IPA| [ƫ] ), and there is still an alternate symbol for velarization or pharyngealizaton that is superposed "across" the consonant (as in IPA| [ɫ] for dark L).