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In linguistics, a liquid consonant or simply liquid is any of a class of that consists of Rhotic consonant and Voiced consonant lateral approximants, which are also sometimes described as "R-like sounds" and "L-like sounds". The word liquid seems to be a calque of the Ancient Greek word ὑγρός (; ), initially used by grammarian Dionysius Thrax to describe Greek .
Liquid consonants are more prone to be part of consonant clusters and of the syllable nucleus. Their third are generally non-predictable based on the first two formants. Another important feature is their complex articulation, which makes them a hard consonant class to study with precision and the last consonants to be produced by children during their phonological development. They are also more likely to undergo certain types of phonological changes such as assimilation, dissimilation and metathesis.
Most languages have at least one liquid in their phonemic inventory. English has two, and .
Liquids also hold this position in the hierarchy of syllable peaks, which means that liquids are theoretically more likely to be syllabic (or, in other words, be part of a syllable nucleus) than any other consonants, although some studies show that syllabic nasals are overall more favoured. Thus Czech language, Slovak language and other Slavic languages allow their liquid consonants and to be the center of their syllables – as witnessed by the classic tonguetwister "push (your) finger through (your) throat." Additionally, Slovak also has long versions of these syllabic consonants, ŕ and ĺ, e.g.: kĺb kɫ̩ːp 'joint', vŕba ˈvr̩ːba 'willow', škvŕn ʃkvr̩ːn '(of) spots'. This is also true for General American English (see the words barr el and anchor) and other English accents.
Sequences of an obstruent and a liquid consonant are often ambiguous as far as syllabification is concerned. In these cases, whether the two consonants are part of the same syllable or not heavily depends on the individual language, and closely related languages can behave differently (such as Icelandic and Faroese). In Latin and Ancient Greek, obstruent + liquid consonant clusters (known as muta cum liquida) supposedly were ambiguous in this sense, and as such were often used to manipulate meter.
In articulatory phonetics, liquids are described as controlled gestures, which are slower and require more precise tongue movement during the "homing phase", when the tongue adjusts towards the place of articulation of the consonant. Due to the fact that babies prefer ballistic gestures, which rely on the propelling motion of the jaw, liquids usually occur later in a child's phonological development, (1980). 9780127706016, Academic Press. ISBN 9780127706016 and they are more likely to be deleted in consonant clusters before the age of three. Liquids have also been described as consonants involving "complex lingual geometries."
To better determine the full range of articulatory and acoustic characteristics of liquids, the use of ultrasound paired with audio recordings is increasing. This is due to this consonant group being difficult to analyse on a purely auditory base.
In Spanish, a frequent example is the behaviour of /r/ and /l/:
In English, is frequently pronounced /ˈkʌmf.tɚ.bəl/ in rhotic varieties, even though its stem, , is pronounced /ˈkʌm.fɚt/, with the rhotic /ɹ/ in its original position.
A specific form of liquid assimilation, liquid harmony, is present is some languages. In Sundanese, some morphemes have two different realisations depending on what liquid is present in the root.
Many languages, such as Japanese, Korean language, or Polynesian languages (see below), have a single liquid phoneme that has both lateral and rhotic .
English language has two liquid phonemes, one lateral, and one rhotic, , exemplified in the words l ed and red.
Many other European languages have one lateral and one rhotic phoneme. Some, such as Greek language, Italian language and Serbo-Croatian, have more than two liquid phonemes. All three languages have the set , with two laterals and one rhotic. Similarly, the Iberian languages contrast four liquid phonemes. , , , and a fourth phoneme that is an alveolar trill in most Iberian languages except for many varieties of Portuguese, where it is a Uvular consonant trill or fricative (also, the majority of Spanish speakers lack and use the central instead). Some European languages, for example Russian language and Irish language, contrast a palatalized lateral–rhotic pair with an unpalatalized (or Velarization) set (e.g. in Russian).
Elsewhere in the world, two liquids of the types mentioned above remains the most common attribute of a language's consonant inventory except in North America and Australia. A majority of indigenous North American languages do not have rhotics at all and there is a wide variety of lateral sounds, though most are obstruent laterals rather than liquids. Most indigenous Australian languages, in contrast, are very rich in liquids, with some having as many as seven distinct liquids. They typically include dental, alveolar, retroflex and palatal laterals, and as many as three rhotics.
On the other side, there are many indigenous languages in the Amazon Basin and eastern North America, as well as a few in Asia and Africa, with no liquids.
Polynesian languages typically have only one liquid, which may be either a lateral or a rhotic. Non-Polynesian Oceanic languages usually have both and , occasionally more (e.g. Araki language has , , ) or less (e.g. Mwotlap language has only ). Hiw language is unusual in having a prestopped velar lateral as its only liquid..
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