Alveolar consonants (; UK also ) are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior

alveolar ridge The alveolar process () is the portion of bone containing the tooth sockets on the jaw bones (in humans, the maxilla and the mandible). The alveolar process is covered by gums within the mouth, terminating roughly along the line of the mandib ...

, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated with the tip of the tongue (the

apical consonant An apical consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the tip of the tongue (apex) in conjunction with upper articulators from lips to postalveolar, and possibly prepalatal. It contrasts with laminal cons ...

s), as in English, or with the flat of the tongue just above the tip (the "blade" of the tongue; called

laminal consonant A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue, in contact with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, ...

s), as in French and Spanish. The

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...

(IPA) does not have separate symbols for the alveolar consonants. Rather, the same symbol is used for all coronal places of articulation that are not palatalized like English

palato-alveolar Postalveolar (post-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but n ...

''sh'', or

retroflex A retroflex () or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consona ...

. To disambiguate, the ''bridge'' (, ''etc.'') may be used for a dental consonant, or the under-bar (, ''etc.'') may be used for the postalveolars. differs from dental in that the former is a

sibilant Sibilants (from 'hissing') are fricative and affricate consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English w ...

and the latter is not. differs from postalveolar in being unpalatalized. The bare letters , etc. cannot be assumed to specifically represent alveolars. The language may not make such distinctions, such that two or more coronal

places of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is an approximate location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a pa ...

are found allophonically, or the transcription may simply be too broad to distinguish dental from alveolar. If it is necessary to specify a consonant as alveolar, a diacritic from the Extended IPA may be used: , ''etc.'', though that could also mean extra-retracted. The letters are frequently called 'alveolar', and the language examples below are all alveolar sounds. (The Extended IPA diacritic was devised for speech pathology and is frequently used to mean "alveolarized", as in the labioalveolar sounds , where the lower lip contacts the alveolar ridge.)

In IPA

Alveolar consonants are transcribed in the IPA as follows:

Lack of alveolars

There are no languages that have no alveolars at all. The alveolar or dental consonants and are, along with , the most common consonants in human languages.Ian Maddieson and Sandra Ferrari Disner, 1984, ''Patterns of Sounds.'' Cambridge University Press Nonetheless, there are a few languages that lack them. A few languages on

Bougainville Island Bougainville Island (; Tok Pisin: ''Bogenvil'') is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which is part of Papua New Guinea. Its land area is . The highest point is Mount Balbi, on the main island, at . The much smaller Buk ...

and around

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ; ) is a complex estuary, estuarine system of interconnected Marine habitat, marine waterways and basins located on the northwest coast of the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As a part of the Salish Sea, the sound ...

, such as Makah, lack nasals and therefore but have . Colloquial Samoan, however, lacks both and but has a lateral alveolar approximant . (Samoan words written with ''t'' and ''n'' are pronounced with and in colloquial speech.) In Standard Hawaiian, is an allophone of , but and exist.

consonants

In labioalveolars, the lower lip contacts the alveolar ridge. Such sounds are typically the result of a severe overbite. In the Extensions to the IPA for disordered speech, they are transcribed with the alveolar diacritic on labial letters: .

Notes

References

* {{IPA navigation Place of articulation *

In IPA

Lack of alveolars

consonants

See also

Notes

References