Affricates

Affricates and Fricatives

While they contain fricatives, affricates are not equivalent to fricatives. An affricate shares properties of both a stop and a fricative.

You can see the difference between stops and fricatives by looking at a spectrogram. Spectrograms are helpful for visualizing the frequency range and amplitude (loudness) of a sound over time. The waveform also provides information about a sound's amplitude and other values. The image below includes a waveform at the top, a spectrogram in the middle, and annotations of the sounds at the bottom.

A stop is a full closure of the vocal tract. The sound of a stop is the burst of air that occurs when the closure is released. These are the stages of a stop that are visible on a spectrogram.

• Closure: A white space represents silence.
• Burst: A sharp, vertical dark stripe appears as the closure is released.
• Following noise: Depending on the stop, this could look like a very brief fricative or the beginning of a brief vowel.

A fricative is a turbulent stream of air through a partial closure of the vocal tract. On a spectrogram, this is a "fuzzy," static-like stream of noise. Because they involve a continuous stream of air, fricatives can be sustained for a long time. This means that fricatives can take up a larger amount of horizontal space on a spectrogram than stops.

An affricate is a combination of a stop and a fricative; this is visible on a spectrogram. An affricate begins with the sharp, vertical dark stripe at the stop's burst. It takes on the static-like appearance of the fricative as soon as the stop is released. Because it ends with a fricative, an affricate can last longer and occupy more horizontal space on the spectrogram than a stop.

Affricate Manner of Articulation

Three factors characterize consonants: place, voice, and manner of articulation. Affricate (or affrication) is a manner of articulation, meaning that it defines the mechanism used to produce a consonant.

As for place and voicing:

• Affricates can occur in various places of articulation. The only constraint is that the stop and fricative must have roughly the same place of articulation.
• Affricates can be voiced or voiceless. The stop and fricative can't differ in voicing: If one is voiceless, the other must be voiceless too.

Examples of Affricates

Affricates are found in many languages around the world, including English. Affricates come in several shapes and sizes, but these examples cover some common affricates.

1. The voiceless bilabial-labiodental affricate [p͡f] appears in German in words like Pferd (horse) and Pfennig (penny). Some English speakers use this sound as a derisive noise of frustration (Pf! I can't believe this.)
2. The voiceless alveolar lateral affricate [t͡ɬ] is an alveolar stop combined with a lateral fricative (a fricative in the L position). It appears in the Otali Cherokee language in words like Ꮭ [t͡ɬa], which means no.

In English, the two primary affricates are:

1. Voiceless alveolar affricate [ʧ] as in the word "chance" /ʧæns/. You can see examples of [t͡ʃ] in cheer, bench, and nachos.
2. Voiced postalveolar affricate [ʤ] as in the word "judge" /ʤʌdʒ/. Examples of [d͡ʒ] are in the words jump, budge, and badger.

These examples demonstrate the characteristic stop-fricative sequence of affricates. The first part of the sound fully obstructs the airflow (the stop), and the second part releases the airflow with some friction (the fricative).

What is the Meaning of Affricates?

One question still remains: how do affricates affect the meaning of words? If an affricate is just a stop combined with a fricative, is it at all different from a stop next to a fricative?

An affricate is distinct in meaning from a stop/fricative sequence. It can distinguish phrases like great shin and gray chin. If affricates can set these expressions apart, they must carry a unique acoustic signal that people can perceive.

To find an observable acoustic difference between a stop/fricative sequence and an affricate, look once again at the spectrogram. This spectrogram shows a speaker saying last shell with a stop/fricative sequence and less chill with an affricate.

From this distance, it's clear that the [t ʃ] sequence in last shell is slightly longer than the [t͡ʃ] affricate in less chill. The difference in duration could help acoustically signal the difference between the sounds.

Zooming in on the stop/fricative sequence, you can see a brief decrease in amplitude where [t] ends and [ʃ] begins. This "gap" doesn't seem characteristic of an affricate.

Sure enough, zooming in on the affricate shows that this gap between [t] and [ʃ] is not present. Not only can we hear the difference between affricates and stop/fricative sequences; we can see it too!