Alveolar consonant

Alveolar consonants (/ælˈviːələr, ˌælviˈoʊlər/) are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, 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 consonants), as in English, or with the flat of the tongue just above the tip (the "blade" of the tongue; called laminal consonants), as in French and Spanish.

Alveolar
◌͇

The International Phonetic Alphabet (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 sh, or retroflex. To disambiguate, the bridge ([s̪, t̪, n̪, l̪], etc.) may be used for a dental consonant, or the under-bar ([s̠, t̠, n̠, l̠], etc.) may be used for the postalveolars. [s̪] differs from dental [θ] in that the former is a sibilant and the latter is not. [s̠] differs from postalveolar [ʃ] in being unpalatalized.

The bare letters [s, t, n, l], etc. cannot be assumed to specifically represent alveolars. The language may not make such distinctions, such that two or more coronal places of articulation 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: [s͇, t͇, n͇, l͇], etc., though that could also mean extra-retracted.[1] The letters ⟨s, t, n, l⟩ 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 [p͇, b͇, m͇, f͇, v͇], where the lower lip contacts the alveolar ridge.)

In IPA

Alveolar consonants are transcribed in the IPA as follows:

IPA	Description	Example
		Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning in English
	alveolar nasal	English	run	[ɹʌn]
	voiceless alveolar stop	English	stop	[stɒp]
	voiced alveolar stop	English	debt	[dɛt]
	voiceless alveolar fricative	English	suit	[suːt]
	voiced alveolar fricative	English	zoo	[zuː]
	voiceless alveolar affricate	English	pizza	[pit͡sə]
	voiced alveolar affricate	Italian	zaino	[ˈd͡zaino]	backpack
	voiceless alveolar lateral fricative	Welsh	llwyd	[ɬʊɪd]	grey
	voiced alveolar lateral fricative	Zulu	dlala	[ˈɮálà]	to play
t͡ɬ	voiceless alveolar lateral affricate	Tsez	элIни	[ˈʔe̞t͡ɬni]	winter
d͡ɮ	voiced alveolar lateral affricate	?	?	?	?
	alveolar approximant	English	red	[ɹɛd]
	alveolar lateral approximant	English	loop	[lup]
	velarized alveolar lateral approximant	English	milk	[mɪɫk]
	alveolar flap	English	better	[bɛɾɚ]
	alveolar lateral flap	Venda		[vuɺa]	to open
	alveolar trill	Spanish	perro	[pero]	dog
	alveolar ejective	Georgian	ტიტა	[tʼitʼa]	tulip
	alveolar ejective fricative	Amharic	ጼጋ	[sʼɛɡa]
	alveolar lateral ejective fricative	Adyghe	плӀы	[pɬ’ə]
	voiced alveolar implosive	Vietnamese	đã	[ɗɐː]	Past tense indicator
	apical alveolar click release (many distinct consonants)	Nama	!oas	[ᵑ̊ǃˀoas]	hollow
	alveolar lateral click release (many distinct consonants)	Nama	ǁî	[ᵑ̊ǁˀĩː]	discussed

Lack of alveolars

The alveolar or dental consonants [t] and [n] are, along with [k], the most common consonants in human languages.[2] Nonetheless, there are a few languages that lack them. A few languages on Bougainville Island and around Puget Sound, such as Makah, lack nasals and therefore [n], but have [t]. Colloquial Samoan, however, lacks both [t] and [n], but it has a lateral alveolar approximant /l/. (Samoan words written with t and n are pronounced with [k] and [ŋ] in colloquial speech.) In Standard Hawaiian, [t] is an allophone of /k/, but /l/ and /n/ exist.

Labioalveolar 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: ⟨m͇ p͇ b͇ f͇ v͇⟩.

See also

• Index of phonetics articles
• Perception of English /r/ and /l/ by Japanese speakers
• Place of articulation

Notes

1. E.g. in Laver (1994) Principles of Phonetics, p. 559–560
2. Ian Maddieson and Sandra Ferrari Disner, 1984, Patterns of Sounds. Cambridge University Press

References

• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.