nonemphatic

Nonemphatic is a term used in phonology to describe consonants that do not involve the emphatic secondary articulation found in some languages. Emphatic consonants are typically described as pharyngealized or velarized, and nonemphatic consonants lack this feature.

Many languages that have emphatic consonants also maintain a nonemphatic set, creating a contrast between the two series. In Arabic, for example, the emphatic consonants ص (sad emphatic), ض (dad emphatic), ط (ta) and ظ (ẓa) are described as pharyngealized or velarized and contrast with their nonemphatic counterparts س (sin), د (dal), ت (ta), ز (zay).

Phonetically, nonemphatic consonants are described as lacking the secondary articulation that characterizes emphatics. They may share the same place of articulation as their emphatic partners but do not involve the constriction or retraction associated with pharyngealization or velarization. In some languages, the presence or absence of emphatics also interacts with vowel quality, stress, or intonation, though such effects vary by language.

In descriptive work, nonemphatic serves as a useful label for classifying consonants that do not bear the emphatic feature. The term is most relevant in languages with an emphatic contrast; in languages that do not have emphatics, the term is less central and often not used as a phonological category.