In
articulatory
phonetics, the place of articulation (also
point of articulation) of a consonant
is the point of contact, where an obstruction
occurs in the vocal
tract between an active (moving) articulator (typically
some part of the tongue) and a passive (stationary) articulator
(typically some part of the roof of the mouth). Along
with the manner
of articulation and phonation,
this gives the consonant its distinctive sound.s
A place of articulation is defined as both the
active and passive articulators. For instance, the active
lower lip may contact either a passive upper lip (bilabial,
like [m])
or the upper teeth (labiodental,
like [f]).
The hard palate
may be contacted by either the front or the back of the
tongue. If the front of the tongue is used, the place
is called retroflex;
if back of the tongue ("dorsum") is used, the place is
called "dorsal-palatal", or more commonly, just palatal.
There are five basic active articulators: the lip ("labial
consonants"), the flexible front of the tongue ("coronal
consonants"), the middle/back of the tongue ("dorsal
consonants"), the root of the tongue together with
the epiglottis
("radical
consonants"), and the larynx
("laryngeal
consonants"). These articulators can act independently
of each other, and two or more may work together in what
is called coarticulation (see below).
The passive articulation, on the other hand, is a continuum
without many clear-cut boundaries. The places linguolabial
and interdental, interdental and dental, dental and alveolar,
alveolar and palatal, palatal and velar, velar and uvular
merge into one another, and a consonant may be pronounced
somewhere between the named places.
In addition, when the front of the tongue is used, it
may be the upper surface or blade of the tongue
that makes contact ("laminal
consonants"), the tip of the tongue ("apical
consonants"), or the under surface ("sub-apical
consonants"). These articulations also merge into
one another without clear boundaries.
Consonants that have the same place of articulation,
such as alveolar [n, t, d, s, z, l] in English,
are said to be homorganic. A homorganic nasal
rule is a case where the point of articulation of
the initial sound is assimilated by the last sound in
a prefix. An example of this rule is found in language
Yoruba, where ba, "hide", becomes mba, "is
hiding", while sun, "sleep", becomes nsun,
"is sleeping".
Table of active articulations
and places of articulation
List of places where the obstruction
may occur
- Bilabial:
between the lips
- Labiodental:
between the lower lip and the upper teeth
- Linguolabial
consonant: between the front of the tongue and the
upper lip
- Dental:
between the front of the tongue and the top teeth
- Alveolar
consonant: between the front of the tongue and the
ridge behind the gums (the alveolus)
- Postalveolar
consonant: between the front of the tongue and the
space behind the alveolar ridge
- Retroflex:
in "true" retroflexes, the tongue curls back so the
underside touches the palate
- Palatal:
between the middle of the tongue and the hard palate
- Velar:
between the back of the tongue and the soft palate (the
velum)
- Uvular:
between the back of the tongue and the uvula
(which hangs down in the back of the mouth)
(All of the above may be nasalized,
and most may be lateralized.)
Nasals and laterals
- In nasals, the velum is lowered to allow air
to pass through the nose (technically a place, but generally
considered as a manner
of articulation)
- In laterals, the air is released past the tongue
sides and teeth rather than over the tip of the tongue.
English
has only one lateral, /l/, but many languages have more
than one, e.g. Spanish
written "l" vs. "ll"; Hindi
with dental, palatal, and retroflex laterals; and numerous
Native
American languages with not only lateral approximants,
but also lateral fricatives
and affricates.
Some Northeast
Caucasian languages have five, six, or even seven
lateral consonants.
Coarticulation
Some languages have consonants with two simultaneous
places of articulation, called coarticulation.
When these are doubly
articulated, the articulators must be independently
movable, and therefore there may only be one each from
the categories labial, coronal, dorsal, and radical. (The
glottis controls phonation
and sometimes the airstream,
and is not considered an articulator.)
However, more commonly there is a secondary
articulation of an approximantic
nature, in which case both articulations can be similar,
such as labialized labials, palatalized velars, etc.
Some common coarticulations include:
- Labialization,
rounding the lips while producing the obstruction, as
in [kʷ]
and English /w/.
- Palatalization,
raising the body of the tongue toward the hard palate
while producing the obstruction, as in Russian
/tʲ/.
- Velarization,
raising the back of the tongue toward the soft palate
(velum),
as in the English dark l, [lˠ]
or [ɫ].
- Pharyngealization,
constriction of the throat (pharynx),
such as Arabic
"emphatic" [tˤ].
- Doubly articulated stop: a stop produced simultaneously
with another stop, such as labial-velar
consonants like [k͡p],
found throughout West and Central Africa. There are
also labial-alveolar
consonants [t͡p
d͡b n͡m], found as distinct consonants
only in a
single language in New Guinea, which also contrasts
labial-postalveolar stops. Somali
has a uvular-epiglottal
stop [q͡ʡ].
See also
References
External links
