Alveolar
In phonetics, "alveolar" refers to sounds produced by the tongue making contact with the alveolar ridge, a bony ridge located just behind the upper front teeth. Alveolar sounds are common in many languages and include sounds like /t/, /d/, /s/, and /z/. These sounds are produced by directing airflow against the alveolar ridge.
7 Key excerpts on "Alveolar"
eBook - ePubPhonetics
Transcription, Production, Acoustics, and Perception
- Henning Reetz, Allard Jongman(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...English has central approximants at three places of articulation: labial-velar (w ay), produced simultaneously with the back of the tongue raised toward the velum and with pursed or rounded lips; Alveolar (r ye), produced with the tongue tip raised toward the Alveolar ridge; and palatal (y ou), produced with the front of the tongue raised toward the palate. In a lateral approximant, the central pathway is blocked and the air flows sideways (laterally) around the blockage. English has one lateral approximant, with an Alveolar place of articulation, as in the word l ie. In the production of a lateral Alveolar approximant, the tip of the tongue makes full contact with the Alveolar ridge. However, the airflow is not interrupted because air passes around the sides of the tongue. To summarize, consonants can be described in terms of voicing, and place and manner of articulation. Voicing indicates whether a sound is voiced or voiceless. Places of articulation for English sounds are bilabial, labiodental, dental, Alveolar, postAlveolar, palatal, velar, and glottal. Manners of articulation are plosive, nasal, fricative, affricate, and approximant. In addition, two more dimensions can be used to fully specify consonants: oral/nasal to indicate whether a sound is oral or nasal, and central/lateral, to indicate whether air flows out through the center of the mouth or along the sides of the mouth. As an example, the initial consonant in the word z est can be described as a “voiced Alveolar central oral fricative.” In English, the vast majority of speech sounds involves a central articulation (only “l” is a lateral). In addition, most sounds are oral, produced with a velic closure (only “m,” “n,” and “ng” are nasal). Central and oral are therefore typically considered default values for these categories and can be left out of the specification...
eBook - ePubPhonetics
The Science of Speech
- Martin J Ball, Joan Rahilly(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...These sounds are all formed by raising the tip and/or blade of the tongue up to the Alveolar ridge to form a contact or near contact. The terms ‘apico-Alveolar’ and ‘lamino-Alveolar’ are used to denote the tip/blade distinction. In transcription, we can add the tip or blade diacritic to the Alveolar symbol to show the difference: [d̺, d̻]. The choice between tip and blade appears to be personal and the difference is not easy to hear. (Tip and blade distinctions can also be made at the dental and post-Alveolar positions.) In the case of [l], of course, the tongue maintains its contact at the Alveolar ridge while the air escapes laterally down the side of the tongue. Lateral fricatives also occur at the Alveolar position; in fact the Alveolar [ɬ, ɮ] are the only two lateral fricatives to occur at all regularly in natural language. The trill [r], and the tap [ɾ] are also Alveolar and, as noted above, sometimes occur in English. Denti-Alveolar is sometimes used to apply to sounds where the contact straddles the dental and Alveolar regions. If the place of articulation is right at the back edge of the Alveolar ridge, just before its boundary with the arch of the hard palate, we term the sounds post-Alveolar. Fricatives made here, with the blade of the tongue (and so, are ‘lamino-post-Alveolar’), have their own symbols, [ʃ, ʒ], and are the sounds of English ‘sh’ in ‘shop’ and ‘s’ in ‘treasure’. Until recently these sounds were termed ‘palato-Alveolars’ and this usage may still be encountered. Post-Alveolar affricates, [tʃ, dʒ], are the sounds of English ‘church’ and ‘judge’ respectively. 7 The central approximant produced at this position is the [ɹ] sound: the most common variant of ‘r’ in English (this is generally consid-ered to be ‘apico-post-Alveolar’). Other than these, post-Alveolar oral and nasal stops are transcribed using the Alveolar symbols with a diacritic to mark retraction (i.e...
eBook - ePub- Patricia Ashby(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...You will see that it is possible to distinguish at least eleven single or PRIMARY ARTICULATIONS and two or three double articulations. As you will see, there are some places of articulation that English does not use. This will be true in the case of any language. When this information is put together with what you already know about voicing, we have the beginning of the phonetic system for consonant description. This is a three-part labelling system which enables us to give a unique name or description for any consonant sound that a speaker might make. The first two parts of each label give information about the voicing of the sound and its place of articulation. Table 5.1 Places of articulation Articulators Place name Examples Passive: Upper lip Bilabial [p b m] Active: Lower lip Passive: Upper front teeth Labiodental [f v] Active: Lower lip Passive: Upper front teeth Dental [θ ð] Active: Tongue tip or blade Passive: Alveolar ridge Alveolar [t d n s z l] Active: Tongue tip or blade Passive: Back of Alveolar ridge PostAlveolar [ ] (= /r/) Active: Tongue tip Passive: Front of hard palate Retroflex American Active: Underside of tongue tip (= apico-palatal) English ‘r’: [ ] Passive: Back of Alveolar ridge, front of hard palate PalatoAlveolar (a subset of the pastAlveolar group) [∫ t∫ d ] Active: Blade of tongue and front of...
eBook - ePub- David Crystal(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...The soft palate is particularly important in the production of speech, as it is under muscular control which enables it to be raised (closing the upper part of the PHARYNX) for the production of ORAL sounds, or lowered (keeping the passage to the nose open) for the production of NASAL sounds. Poor control of the soft palate (which may result from several neurological or anatomical conditions, such as cleft palate) leads to abnormal nasal resonance or friction. palato-Alveolar (adj.) A term used in the PHONETIC classification of CONSONANT sounds on the basis of their PLACE OF ARTICULATION : it refers to a sound made by a double movement of the TONGUE towards the area between the Alveolar ridge and hard PALATE : the BLADE of the tongue (or the TIP and blade together) makes contact with the Alveolar ridge, while the FRONT of the tongue is raised in the direction of the hard palate. Examples in English are the sh- [∫] of ship and the - s - [ ] of treasure. Several other varieties of sound may be articulated in this part of the mouth by slightly varying the position and shape of the tongue, e.g. ALVEO (LO)- PALATAL sounds, which are important in some LANGUAGES, such as Polish. palatograph (n.) An instrument used in ARTICULATORY PHONETICS to study articulations made against the PALATE. Palatography has used several techniques to produce accurate pictures of TONGUE contact with the palate – palatograms. An early palatographic technique involved spraying the roof of the mouth with a dark powdery substance; an articulation would then be made, which, if in the palatal or Alveolar area, would rub off some of the substance: the roof of the mouth would then be photographed to pinpoint the place of articulation. Apart from the inconvenience of this method, its biggest drawback is that it was static: it disallowed any observation of the movement of the tongue in connected speech...
eBook - ePubThe Sounds of Language
An Introduction to Phonetics
- Henry Rogers(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The upper articulators are the upper lip, the upper teeth, the palate, the velum, the uvula and the rear wall of the pharynx. Places of articulation usually have a compound name giving the lower and upper articulators, with the name of the lower articulator first. Thus, apico-dental indicates that the lower articulator is the apex of the tongue, and the upper articulator is the upper teeth. Occasionally, when the lower articulator is obvious or unimportant, only the upper articulator is named: for example, velar, used alone, is interpreted as meaning dorso-velar. Table 10.1 illustrates a number of terms used to describe the articulators, with their Latin or Greek equivalents. Table 10.1 Terminology Labial Labial sounds are made with one or both lips and include bilabials, labiodentals, and linguo-labials. Bilabial The lower lip articulates with the upper lip to form a bilabial consonant (Figure 10.1). The term bilabial is used rather than labio-labial. The bilabial stops are voiceless [p] and voiced [b] as in English. The fricatives are voiceless [φ] phi, and voiced [β] beta. The nasal stop is [m] as in English. Bilabial stops and the nasal are extremely common in languages; indeed, a language without them is noteworthy. Bilabial fricatives, however, are rather uncommon; languages tend to have bilabial stops and labio-dental fricatives. Figure 10.1 Labial articulations Ewe (Ghana, West Africa) is unusual in having contrasting bilabial and labio-dental fricatives. High tone here is shown by [´] and low tone by [`]. Ewe Labiodental The lower lip articulates against the upper teeth to form labiodental consonants (Figure 10.1). Labiodental stops do not occur distinctively although they are quite easy to make if your teeth do not have gaps. The labiodental nasal [m] is reported in Teke (Laver, 1994)...
eBook - ePub- Hongyuan Dong(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The first two dimensions are the most basic ones. The place of articulation refers to where the obstruction of air occurs when you utter a consonant. For example, when you say the “b” in “bay”, you use your lips to block the airflow first and then release it. The major places of articulation include: Table AII.1 Places of articulation Places of articulation Description Examples Bilabial Uttered with lower and upper lips b “bay” p “pay” m “may” Labiodental Uttered with lower lip against upper teeth f “fade” v “vade” Dental Tongue against teeth th “thigh” th “thy” Alveolar Tongue against the gum area right above the upper teeth t “too” d “do” n “no” l “low” r “right” “dd” “ladder” s “sip” z “zip” Post-Alveolar or palatal Tongue a little further back than Alveolar sounds sh “show” “g” “rouge” Retroflex The tip of tongue rolled up against the palatal area Chinese “sh” as in “shéi” (who) Velar The back of tongue raised against the back of palate k “Kate” g “gate” ng “sing” Uvular The back tongue against the uvula Hebrew q “qol” for “voice” The French r as in. “rouge” Glottal Uttered at the vocal folds h “hide” For some English speakers: “tt” in “button” The manner of articulation refers to the kind of obstruction of air that it is when you utter a consonant. For example, when you pronounce the b in “bay”, there is a total obstruction in the vocal tract. But when you pronounce the f in “fade”, there is a narrowing of the vocal tract but air can still pass through. The manners of articulation include: Table AII.2 Manners of articulation Manner of articulation Description Examples Stop or plosive Total obstruction of air p “pie” t “tie” g “guy” Nasal Total obstruction of air in the mouth but air comes out of the nose m “may” n “nay” ng “sing” Trill Relevant articulators such as the tip of tongue, etc...
eBook - ePub- Peter Ladefoged, Sandra Ferrari Disner(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...The front part is called the hard palate, and the back part the soft palate. A more technical term for the soft palate is the velum. The uvula hangs down from the velum. The velum can be moved up and down so that air can be blocked from going out of the nose or allowed to escape that way, forming a nasal sound. Try saying a long m, followed by ba, so that you say mmmbaa. You probably can’t feel your velum go up at the beginning of the b, but this is what happens to stop air going out through the nose. 11.3 Places and Manners of Articulation When you make a consonant you usually have to obstruct the air that is being pushed out of the lungs in some way. Consonants can be made by closing or narrowing the vocal tract at various places. Some of the technical terms that are used for the different places are shown in Table 11.1. The definitions given are appropriate for English consonants. When describing other languages these terms may be used in slightly different ways. Table 11.1 Some places of articulation: regions of the vocal tract particularly associated with a particular gesture of the tongue or lips Place Description Bilabial The two lips coming together Labiodental The lower lip near the upper teeth Dental The tip of the tongue near the upper front teeth Alveolar The tip or blade of the tongue touching or near the Alveolar ridge Post-Alveolar The blade of the tongue near the forward part of the hard palate just behind the Alveolar ridge; sometimes called palatoAlveolar Palatal The front of the tongue near the hard palate Velar The back of the tongue touching the soft palate (the velum) Labiovelar The two lips approaching one another, and the back of the tongue raised toward the soft palate Figure 11.3 illustrates the positions of the vocal organs in some English consonants at these different places of articulation. Although a particular position is shown, you should always remember that an articulation is really a gesture involving a movement...
