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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.
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 ) or the upper teeth (labiodental, like ). 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".

Contents

Table of active articulations and places of articulation

List of places where the obstruction may occur

Nasals and laterals

Coarticulation

See also

External links

Table of active articulations and places of articulation

Active gesture		Active + passive place of articulation
'Labial'		Bilabial
		Labiodental
'Coronal'	'Laminal'	Linguolabial
		Interdental
		Laminal dental
		Laminal denti-alveolar
		Laminal alveolar
		Laminal postalveolar ("retroflex" #1)
	'Domed consonant' (partially palatalized)	Domed consonant postalveolar ("palato-alveolar")
	'Palatalized'	Palatalized postalveolar ("alveolo-palatal")
	'Apical'	Apical dental
		Apical alveolar
		Apical postalveolar ("retroflex" #2)
	'Sub-apical'	Sub-apical (pre)palatal ("retroflex" #3)
'Dorsal'		Prepalatal
		Palatal
		Prevelar (or medio-palatal)
		Velar
		Postvelar
		Uvular
'Radical'		Upper pharyngeal
		Lower pharyngeal
		Epiglotto-pharyngeal
		(Ary-)epiglottal
'Laryngeal'		Glottal

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.)

★ Pharyngeal: between the root of the tongue and the back of the throat (the pharynx)

★ Epiglotto-pharyngeal: between the epiglottis and the back of the throat

★ Epiglottal: between the aryepiglottic folds and the epiglottis (see larynx)

★ Glottal: at the glottis (see larynx)

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 and English .

★ Palatalization, raising the body of the tongue toward the hard palate while producing the obstruction, as in Russian .

★ Velarization, raising the back of the tongue toward the soft palate (velum), as in the English dark l, or .

★ Pharyngealization, constriction of the throat (pharynx), such as Arabic "emphatic" .

★ Doubly articulated stop: a stop produced simultaneously with another stop, such as labial-velar consonants like , found throughout West and Central Africa. There are also labial-alveolar consonants , found as distinct consonants only in a single language in New Guinea, which also contrasts labial-postalveolar stops. Somali has a uvular-epiglottal stop .

See also

★ List of phonetics topics

★ Manner of articulation

External links

★ Interactive places and manners of articulation