Lateral
From KneeQuickie
A lateral consonant is one articulated with more airflow at the sides of the mouth than in the centre. Often but not always, the airflow is completely blocked in the centre of the mouth; the sound nevertheless does not qualify as a stop, because the airflow is not stopped altogether.
Lateral consonants can be divided according to whether the tongue is in the centre of the mouth (allowing airflow to both sides) or to one side (allowing airflow only to the other side). In lieu of standardly accepted phonological names for these, perhaps "bilateral" and "monolateral" respectively would be sufficient. Of course, monolaterals may be further divided into left and right. In any case, no language has a phonemic distinction between these different types of lateral.
The most common laterals in natlangs are approximants, although lateral fricatives also exist. If a plosive is released as a lateral fricative, this forms a lateral affricate. Any plosive may be laterally released, although this is only phonemically significant in the case of clicks.
The IPA has symbols for the following lateral sounds:
| IPA | X-Sampa | |
| Unvoiced alveolar fricative | /ɬ/ | /K/ |
| Voiced alveolar fricative | /ɮ/ | /K\/ |
| Voiced alveolar approximant | /l/ | /l/ |
| Velarized voiced alveolar approximant | /ɫ/ | /5/ |
| Voiced retroflex approximant | /ɭ/ | /l`/ |
| Voiced palatal approximant | /ʎ/ | /L/ |
| Voiced velar approximant | /ʟ/ | /L\/ |
| Alveolar lateral click | /ǁ/ | /|\|\/ |
In addition, the following symbols are present in Z-Sampa:
- Strongly velarized voiced alveolar approximant: /5\/
- Unvoiced palatal fricative: /C\/
- Voiced palatal fricative: /6\/
- Unvoiced velar fricative: /F\/
- Voiced velar fricative: /V\/
- Unvoiced uvular fricative: /q\/
- Voiced uvular fricative: /Q\/
- Voiced uvular approximant: /Y\/
- Alveolar lateral click (alternative representation): /t_l_!/ or /t_7/ (see Clicks in Z-Sampa)
- Other lateral clicks: replace _! in normal click symbol with _l_! or _7
Z-Sampa also has symbols for alveolar lateral and central fricatives: /S\/ for unvoiced and /Z\/ for voiced.
In Z-Sampa, it is possible to distinguish monolaterals by adding the monolateral diacritic _l\ after any lateral sound. (Laterals are assumed to be bilateral by default.)
Lateral release
Lateral release is a modification of a plosive sound by releasing the airflow at the sides of mouth rather than in the centre. A laterally released plosive therefore sounds very like a plosive followed by a lateral consonant such as /l/.
Lateral release is indicated in the IPA with a superscript /l/ (for example, /dˡ/), and in X-Sampa with the diacritic _l. Note that all lateral affricates are by definition laterally released, and do not need the lateral release diacritic in addition.
