User:Adept-eX/Sandbox

SubDerivatives Template
A small collapsible template mean to be used inside the Derivatives

=Phonology and Phonetics for Vocaloid users=

Obstruents
Obstruents is a kind of consonant sound produced by obtruction total or partial of the airflow in the vocal track.

The obstruent can be voiced or unvoiced, this mean they can produced with vibration of the vocal chords or not, respectively. The IPA's chart usually groups the consonant in voiceless-voiced pairs. The voiced obstruents due the vibration of the vocal chords, have a characteristic buzzing when are compared agains their voiceless counterparts (Examples). In the coloquial speech isn't weird to change the voiceless consonants by their voiced counterparts when these are in a voiced context (example: intervowel) or for change the emphasis of a the speech, even more in some languages like Korean or Chinese, there isn't a clear distintion of the voiced-voiceless pairs, being considered allophones and their phonation determined just by the context.

This groups of consonants includes the plosives (also known as stops or occlusives due the total stop of the airflow), the affricates (with a combinated articulation of the plosives and fricatives) and the fricatives (characterized by the partial obstruction of the airflow). Inside the affricates and fricatives it's possible find the groups of the sibilants consonants.

It's possible group the obstruents by its voicing and place of articulation.

Plosives
Also known as oral stops or oclussive, these kind of consonants are produced with obstruction total of the airflow.

Affricate
The affricates are consonants that start as a plosive but has a release as a fricative. The typical example in various languages is the CH, which usually corresponds to the [tʃ] in the IPA.

Fricative
Fricatives are the group of consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators (generally the tongue and another one) close together. This produce a partial block which generates a turbulent airflow knows as frication .

The fricatives have a softer pronunciation in comparison with the corresponding plosive, but have a stronger comparison to the respective approximant. However the stability between some plosives-fricatives (like in the japanese) or fricative-approximant (like in Spanish in certain degree) equivalents is weak, and are know to shift between one or the another. Other fricatives like the voiceless glottal fricative or [h] hasn't clear distintion as fricatives or approximant, behaving as both, and being definied just by the linguitical rules of each tongue.

Sibilant
A sibilant is a manner of articulation of some fricatives and affricates consonants characterized for be made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the sharp edge of the teeth, which are held close together. The sibilant usually are related to the letters S, Z & C; and are characterized by their intense sound (for this usually their are used for call the attention, like when you are quieting someone using "shhhh!")

In relation as the perceived sound, the sibilants can classified in two categories: the hissing sibilants and the hushing sibilant. The hissing sibilants are related with the phonemes s, z and their variation. In the case of the hushing sibilants, most of them are Post-Alveolar Consonants, with different degree of patalization. The voiceless hissing and hushing sibilant (mainly the first ones) has a soothing sound and isn't weird find them in words with a calming meaning or connotation in several languages.

Sonorant
A Sonorants is the speech sounds produced without turbulence or obstruction of the airflow. The group is diverse including to the vowel, semivowels, approximants, liquids (rhotics and laterals) and nasals. Although the definitons varies per author or source, they share a series of traits as could act as syllable nucleous or be modally voiced (rarely are unvoiced).

A feature in Vocaloid3 is the addition of devoiced variants of the sonorants. Those ones are characterized by the addition of the suffix _0 the phoneme, which correspond to the X-SAMPA representation for the voiceless diacritic. Due the sonorants group is diverse, those ones are different for each language available for Vocaloid.

Nasals
A nasal consonant is a consonant where the airflow is directed through the nose. The term is generally used for refer to the nasal stops, the most common kind of nasal consonant and the only one found in the different languages available for Vocaloid.

The nasal stops are know for its strong tendency to assimilation processes. They're known for assimilates the place of articulation of the following plosive, due this is quite common found various allophones for the nasal consonants. Also the vowels has tendency to the nasalization when are previous to a nasal consonant, as a assimilation process.

Approximants
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class of sounds includes lateral approximants (L-related, see liquid consonants section further ahead), non-lateral approximants, and the semivowels or glides.

Liquid Consonants
The liquids are a kind of consonants which groups the lateral and rhotics consonants. Both kind of consonants shares a series of characteristics like: they often have the greatest freedom in occurring in consonant clusters, and they can be prolonged (or shortened) in the same manner as a vowel. It's denomination comes from they often are referred to have a "fluid" sound.

In the European Languages usually the are 2 liquid consonts, one lateral (usually related to the L) and one rhotic (usually related to the R), while in general the Asian countries only have one liquid with little distinction between the laterals and the rothics.

Laterals
A lateral consonant is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. Associated to the letter L, the laterals included to taps, approximants, fricatives, affricates and clicks, the two first are the most common in the vocaloid phonetic system.

Rhotics
The rhotics, tremulants or R-like sounds, are a group of liquid consonants, they're associated to the letter R and the greek symbol rho (hence the name). The rhotics has little association phonetically talking (the kind of consonants is diverse, with little articulatory relation between them). Instead the rothics seems to have similar phonological funtions and share some phonological features (like the lowered third formant) across the different languages.

Beside the rhotic consonants is possible found rothic vowels. These vowels are characterized for have certain R-like tone (produced by the low frecuency in their third formant) and are represented as diphones in the Vocaloid's English Phonetic System. It's important stand out the R-colored vowels may differ stongly between the different voicebanks, being bind to the differences between the rhotic and non-rhotic accents.

Palatals
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex.. The palatals are usually related to the vowel /i/ and its glide /j/, the most common palatal consonants in the world's languages.

Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate.

As phonetic term, it refers to a secondary articulation of consonants by which the body of the tongue is raised toward the hard palate and the alveolar ridge during the articulation of the consonant. Such consonants is said that it's phonetically palatalized and in the International Phonetic Alphabet they are indicated by a superscript , as with [tʲ] for a palatalized [t]. The palatalized consonant is pronounced as if followed very closely by the sound [j] (a palatal approximant, like the sound of "y" in "yellow").

The second definition refers to a common assimilatory process or the result of such a process, which involves front vowels (that is, sounds with a higher second formant such as [i] and [e]) and/or the palatal approximant [j] causing nearby phones to shift towards (though not necessarily coming to) the palatal articulatory position or to positions closer to the front of the mouth (palatalized or palatal. Remember doesn't confuse palatal consonants with palatalized consonants, while the first one has a primary palatal articulation, the second ones are modified consonants which now includes a secondary palatal articulation, without lost its primary one.).

The first may be the result of the second, but they are often different. A vowel may "palatalize" a consonant (sense 2), but the result might not be a palatalized consonant in the phonetic sense (sense 1), intead making. the phonetically palatalized (sense 1) consonant may occur irrespective of adjacency to front vowels.

Labials
A group of consonants produced with one or both lips. Actually there are two kinds of labials consonants, the bilabials and labiodentals.

Bilabials
Associated mainly with the the letters P, B and M, the bilabials are a group of consonants articulated with both lips. The kind of consonants is diverse, including plosives, fricatives and approximants.

Labiodentals
This group of consonants are produced with the upper teeth and the lower lip. In the most of the languages, are associated with the letters F and V.

Dental
T