Voiceless alveolar and dental plosives (or stops) are a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The alveolar is familiar to English-speakers as the sound in stick.
The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is . The voiceless dental plosive can be distinguished with the underbridge diacritic , and the postalveolar with a retraction line, . The extIPA also has a double underline diacritic which can be used to explicitly specify an alveolar pronunciation, .
The sound is a very common sound cross-linguistically. Most languages have at least a plain , and some distinguish more than one variety. Some languages without a are colloquial Samoan (which also lacks an ), Abau, and Nǁng of South Africa.
There are only a few languages which distinguish dental and alveolar stops (or often more precisely laminal and apical alveolar stops), including Kota, Toda, Venda and many Australian Aboriginal languages; certain varieties of Hiberno-English also distinguish them (with dental being the local realization of the Standard English phoneme spelled ).
Features
Features of a voiceless alveolar stop:
There are three specific variants of : Dental, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the upper teeth, termed respectively apical and laminal. Denti-alveolar, which means it is articulated with the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, and the tip of the tongue behind upper teeth. Alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
Occurrence
Dental or denti-alveolar Unless otherwise specified, the examples in this table are laminal denti-alveolar. + Occurrence of in various languages Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Aleut 'dough' Armenian Eastern 'house' Assyrian Neo-Aramaic / 'three' Bashkir 'four' Belarusian 'century' See Belarusian phonology Basque 'place' See Basque phonology Bengali 'you' contrasts with aspirated form. See Bengali phonology Catalan 'land' See Catalan phonology Chuvash 'horse' Dinka 'child' contrasts with alveolar . Dutch Belgian 'language' English Dublin thin 'thin' May be pronounced instead as . See Th-stopping. Indian Corresponds to . See Th-stopping. Southern Irish Ulster train 'train' Allophone of before , in free variation with an alveolar stop. Finnish 'pacifier' See Finnish phonology French 'crooked' See French phonology Hakka / 'he/she' contrasts with an unaspirated form. Hindustani Hindi / 'three' Contrasts with aspirated form ( in Hindi, in Urdu). See Hindustani phonology Urdu / Hmong White Hmong / 'son', 'boy' or 'male name' Indonesian 'curtain' most often transcribed in IPA with ⟨t⟩. Italian 'such' See Italian phonology Japanese / 'special' See Japanese phonology Kashubian 'bird' Kazakh 'salt' Kyrgyz 'salt' Latvian 'table' See Latvian phonology Malayalam 'waiting' Contrasts . See Malayalam phonology Mapudungun 'husband' Interdental. Marathi 'tabla' contrasts with aspirated form. See Marathi phonology MinangkabauPadang 'old' Nepali 'clapping' Contrasts with aspirated form. See Nepali phonology Nunggubuyu 'whiskers' Odia / 'star' contrasts with aspirated form. Pazeh 'keep clapping' Dental. Polish 'volume' See Polish phonology Portuguese Many dialects 'mountain' Likely to have allophones among native speakers, as it may affricate to , and/or in certain environments. See Portuguese phonology Punjabi / 'oil' Russian 'fat' See Russian phonology Scottish GaelicBauer, Michael. Blas na Gàidhlig: The Practical Guide to Gaelic Pronunciation. Glasgow: Akerbeltz, 2011. 'house' Apical dental. Contrasts between aspirated and unaspirated forms. Serbo-Croatian / 'sorrow' See Serbo-Croatian phonologySinhala 'hand' Slovene 'type' See Slovene phonology Slovak 'this' See Slovak phonology Somali 'vomit' Dentalization of alveolar plosive. Spanish 'tango' See Spanish phonology Swedish 'train' See Swedish phonology Tamil 'mother (of self)' See Tamil phonology Telugu 'wrong' Contrasts between aspirated and unaspirated forms. Turkish 'horse' See Turkish phonology Ukrainian 'brother' See Ukrainian phonology Uzbek – Slightly aspirated before vowels. Vietnamese 'week' contrasts with aspirated form. See Vietnamese phonology Zapotec Tilquiapan 'so much'
Alveolar + Occurrence of in various languages Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Abkhaz 'thank you' See Abkhaz phonology Adyghe 'five' Afrikaans 'pot' Arabic Egyptian / 'barrette' See Egyptian Arabic phonology Assyrian / 'house' Most speakers. In the Tyari, Barwari and Southern dialects θ is used.Bengali'the donkey'True alveolar in some eastern dialects. But all Bengali speakers allophone of after and before denti-alveolar and postalveolar . See Bengali phonologyBreton'house' Cantonese / 'fall' (v.) See Cantonese Phonology // 'iron' Chechen / 'squirrel' Czech 'this' See Czech phonology Danish Standard 'can' (n.) Usually transcribed in IPA with or . Contrasts with the affricate or aspirated stop (depending on the dialect), which are usually transcribed in IPA with or . See Danish phonology Dutch 'language' See Dutch phonology English Most speakers tick 'tick' See English phonology New York Varies between apical and laminal, with the latter being predominant. Hebrew 'image' see Modern Hebrew phonology Hungarian 'raft' See Hungarian phonology Indonesian Most speakers tabir [täbɪr] 'curtain' Commonly [t̪] by other speakers. Kabardian 'five' Khmer / 'tea' See Khmer phonology Korean / 'bamboo forest' See Korean phonology Kurdish Northern 'you' See Kurdish phonologyCentral 'forehead'Southern Luxembourgish 'thin' Less often voiced . It is usually transcribed , and it contrasts with voiceless aspirated form, which is usually transcribed . See Luxembourgish phonology Malayalam 'wind' Contrasts . See Malayalam phonology Maltese 'true' Mandarin / 'ground' See Mandarin Phonology / 'ladder/stairs' Mapudungun 'elderly' Nunggubuyu 'greedy' Nuosu / 'place' Contrasts aspirated and unaspirated forms PortuguesePalatalization in Brazilian Portuguese revisited Some dialects 'thing' (pejorative) Allophone before alveolar . In other dialects takes a denti-alveolar allophone instead. See Portuguese phonology Scots Most dialects 'take' Traditionally apical. Can be aspirated word-initially in more English-influenced varieties. Tagalog 'sweet' See Tagalog phonology Thai / 'eye' Contrasts with an aspirated form. West Frisian 'tooth' See West Frisian phonology
Postalveolar
+ Occurrence of Language Word IPA Meaning NotesAcehneseteubèe'sugarcane' See Acehnese phonology Bengali 'cold' Apical postalveolar; contrasts aspirated forms. See Bengali phonology Hindustani / 'hat' Apical postalveolarNepali 'team'Apical postalveolar; contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms. See Nepali phonology Odia / 'crepe jasmine' Apical postalveolar; contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms. Yele 'tongue' Contrasts .
Variable + Occurrence of a voiceless plosive variable between alveolar and dental positions Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Arabic Modern Standard / 'fig' Laminal denti-alveolar or alveolar, depending on the speaker's native dialect. See Arabic phonology English Broad South African talk 'talk' Laminal denti-alveolar for some speakers, alveolar for other speakers. Scottish Welsh German Standard 'daughter' Varies between laminal denti-alveolar, laminal alveolar and apical alveolar. See Standard German phonology Greek 'three' Varies between dental, laminal denti-alveolar and alveolar, depending on the environment. See Modern Greek phonologyMalay / 'catch' More commonly dental. Often unreleased in syllable codas. See Malay phonology Norwegian Urban East 'dance' Varies between laminal denti-alveolar and laminal alveolar. It is usually transcribed . It may be partially voiced , and it contrasts with voiceless aspirated form, which is usually transcribed . See Norwegian phonology Persian 'berry' Varies between laminal denti-alveolar and apical alveolar. See Persian phonology Slovak 'that' Varies between laminal denti-alveolar and laminal alveolar. See Slovak phonologyToki Ponatoki'language'Can be aspirated.
See also Index of phonetics articles
Notes
References
External links