Have you ever wonder how many kinds of sounds that we make by our articulator, the moving parts of our mouth that work together to make the huge variety of words that we use for language?
So in this article, you’ll find out about what are those articulators do base on the IPA provisions, including the explanation of what are place and manner also.
What is a Place of Articulation ?
Place of articulation or point of articulation indicates where our mouth obstruction is occurring when a consonant is formed. To create an obstruction, each of your lips needs to be brought together. One part of the articulator that moves is called the active articulator, and one that remains stationary is called the passive.
1. Bilabial
Bilabial consonants are created when you use both the upper and lower lips together to block/constrict airflow out of the mouth.
Example :
- /b/ as in “bad” and “job”
- /m/ as in “mat” and “jam”
- /p/ as in “pan” and “lamp”
- /w/ as in “watch” and “draw”
2. Labio-dental
Labio-dental consonants are made when you block/constrict the airflow by putting your lower lip and the upper teeth together.
Example :
- /f/ as in “fox” and “roof”
- /v/ as in “village” and “brave”
3. Dental
Here when you block/constrict the airflow by placing the tip of your tongue against your upper teeth.
Example :
- / ?/ as in “think” and “other”
- / ð/ as in “theirs” and “soothe”
4. Alveolar
The alveolar obstruction occurs at the alveolar ridge. It happens when the ridge behind the upper teeth that are touched by your tongue as you raise it. We have a lot of alveolar consonant sounds in English.
Example :
- /d/ as in “dot” and “fed”
- /l/ as in “lion” and “rail”
- /n/ as in “north” and “minute”
- /s/ as in “salt” and “inside”
- /t/ as in “turtle” and “coat”
- /z/ as in “zoo” and “dozen”
- In some accents, this category of articulate also includes with /rr/ rolling r sound.
5. Post-alveolar
Post-alveolar or Palato-alveolar is almost the same as how we articulate the alveolar. But in post-alveolar, the tongue moves back a little bit farther in the mouth.
Example :
- /?/ as in “shape” and “cash”
- /?/ as in “usual” and “beige”
- /t?/ as in “cheap” and “teach”
- /d?/ as in “hedgehog” and “bridge”
6. Palatal
Palatal consonants are where the body of the tongue is raised to the hard palate. In English, we there is only one sound of palatal.
Example :
- /j/ as in “unit”, “young”, “university, and “year”.
7. Velar
Here the obstruction occurs when the back of our tongue touches the soft palate (velum) at the back of the mouth.
Example :
- /g/ as in “glad” and “big”
- /k/ as In “kangaroo” and “knock”
- /?/ as in “uncle” and “singer”
- /w/ as in “wet”
8. Glottal
These sounds are articulated using the glottis. The glottis actually has two vocal cords. It acts as a sort of lid to your windpipe. You can do this by inhaling and then hold your breath with your mouth open. So the air won’t come out from your lungs.
Example :
- /h/ as in “hope” and “Oklahoma”
- /?/ as In “school” and “honest”
Read More: Examples of Glottal Stop Sounds.
What is a Manner of Articulation ?
When place of articulation tells us where the obstruction to the airflow is occurring, the manner of articulation tells us how much of the airflow is being obstructed that came out from the lungs and flows out from the nose and mouth.
1. Nasal
Nasal can be created by stopping the air flow when we can reroute it through the nasal cavity. This produces sounds like:
Example :
- /m/ as in “map” and “swim” ; as we pronounced these words, the articulator is blocked because the lips are closed (bilabial).
- /n/ as in “new” and “sun” ; as we pronounced these words, the articulator is blocked because the tongue tip is pressing against the alveolar ridge (alveolar).
- /?/ as in “paintings” and “length” ; as we pronounced these words, the articulator is blocked because the back part of tongue is pressing against the soft palate (velar).
2. Plosive
Plosive also known as stop, occurs when the airflow by the vocal tract is stopped entirely. But unlike the nasal, the air in a plosive manner quickly boost up pressure behind the articulators and then releases it in a small explosion.
Example :
- /b/ as in “blow” and “comb” ; bilabial
- /d/ as in “duck” and “bed” ; alveolar
- /g/ as in “guess” and “bag” ; velar
- /k/ as in “kayak” ; velar
- /p/ as in “plane” and “cap” ; bilabial
- /t/ as in “tight” ; alveolar
3. Fricative
Here the airflow is obstructed almost entirely producing a turbulent, hissing sound.
Example :
- /f/ as in “fluff” ; labiodental
- /v/ as in “van” ; labiodental
- /?/ as in “with” ; dental
- /ð/ as in “they” ; dental
- /s/ as in “sleep” ; alveolar
- /z/ as in “zipper” ; alveolar
- /?/ as in “wish” ; post–alveolar
- /?/ as in “usually” ; post–alveolar
- /h/ as in “her” some consider that h not even a fricative.
- /x/ as in “loch”
4. Affricate
This consonant is formed from stop consonants that mix with fricative consonants. The consonant affricate starts with air that built up pressure behind an articulator, which then releases the air through a narrow track, rather than making a clean burst like the else.
Example :
- /t?/ as in “watch” ; post-alveolar
- /d?/ as in “job” ; post-alveolar
5. Approximant
Here the airflow is impeded only slightly. The hissing sound indicative of fricatives is no longer present here. But, the sound is altered to a degree. In English, we have 3 approximants. Here are the examples:
Example :
- /w/ as in “water” ; velar
- /j/ as in “yes” ; palatal
- /?/ as in “wrong” ; alveolar/post-alveolar
6. Lateral
Lateral are liquidy “l” type sounds that produced when the tongue creates an obstruction in the middle of the mouth and re-routes the air out the sides of the mouth. This consonant manner come in three forms:
- Lateral Fricatives
- Lateral Approximants
- Lateral
But in English, we only find 1 type of lateral :
- /l/ as in “luck” and “laugh” ; alveolar
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