He massaged her shoulders with a gentle percussive action.

As argued by Dr. Burney, and as implied by the customs of still extant barbarous races, the first musical instruments were, without doubt, percussive—sticks, calabashes, tom-toms—and were used simply to mark the time of the dance ; and in this constant repetition of the same sound, we see music in its most homogeneous form.

Two additional, and much rarer, percussive articulations are represented by symbols in the extIPA chart. Their exclusion from the main IPA chart is an indication that they do not seem to occur as typical forms of adult speech in any part of the world, although they may have some communicative function. The symbol, [ʬ], is used to transcribe a bilabial percussive sound, which might be described in lay terms as lip-smacking.

Percussives are articulations where two rigid or semirigid articulators are struck against each other to produce a short, sharp sound.

Percussive

Meaning

Adj

Noun

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