“Palatal” and “palatalized” redefined

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show that the term “palatal” has been used with various meanings and to redefine or establish a consistency of terminology concerning this term with respect to palatalized and central consonants. Confusion arising from the various divisions of the tongue into articulators and from the misuse of the above articulatory terms has led to incorrect phonological solutions.The status of Russian palatalized and palatal consonants has been under discussion recently. Dunatov claims in a recent article that Russian palatal consonants cannot be palatalized and suggests three different orders of palatals to distinguish “the three articulatory sets of palatals encountered in the Slavic languages”: pre-palatal, medio-palatal, and post-palatal. However, he fails to state the distribution of them in Russian or the other Slavic languages.