Voiceless dental and alveolar plosives

The voiceless alveolar, dental and postalveolar plosives (or stops) are types of consonantal sounds used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is ⟨t⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t. The voiceless dental plosive can be distinguished with the underbridge diacritic, ⟨t̪⟩ and the postalveolar with a retraction line, ⟨t̠⟩, and the Extensions to the IPA have a double underline diacritic which can be used to explicitly specify an alveolar pronunciation, ⟨t͇⟩.

The [t] sound is a very common sound cross-linguistically.^[1] Most languages have at least a plain [t], and some distinguish more than one variety. Some languages without a [t] are colloquial Samoan (which also lacks an [n]), Abau, and Nǁng of South Africa.^{[citation needed]}

There are only a few languages which distinguish dental and alveolar stops, Kota, Toda, Venda and many Australian Aboriginal languages being a few of them; certain varieties of Hiberno-English also distinguish them (with [t̪] being the local realisation of the Standard English phoneme /θ/, represented by ⟨th⟩).

Features

Here are features of the voiceless alveolar stop:

Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive.
There are three specific variants of [t]:
- 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.
Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Varieties

Occurrence

Dental or denti-alveolar

Alveolar

Postalveolar

Variable

Notes

^ Liberman et al. (1967), p. ?.
^ Ladefoged (2005), p. 165.
^ Dum-Tragut (2009), p. 17.
^ Padluzhny (1989), p. 47.
^ Carbonell & Llisterri (1992), p. 53.
^ Skarnitzl, Radek. "Asymmetry in the Czech Alveolar Stops: An EPG Study". Archived from the original on 22 March 2023. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
^ Remijsen & Manyang (2009), pp. 115 and 121.
^ a b Collins & Mees (2003), p. 302.
^ Roca & Johnson (1999), p. 24.
^ "Week 18 (ii). Northern Ireland" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-01-12. Retrieved 2015-04-26.
^ Fougeron & Smith (1993), p. 73.
^ Lee & Zee (2009), p. 109.
^ Ladefoged (2005), p. 141.
^ Soderberg & Olson (2008), p. 210.
^ Rogers & d'Arcangeli (2004), p. 117.
^ Okada (1999), p. 117.
^ Jerzy Treder. "Fonetyka i fonologia". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04.
^ Kara (2003), p. 11.
^ Nau (1998), p. 6.
^ a b c Sadowsky et al. (2013), pp. 88–89.
^ a b Ladefoged (2005), p. 158.
^ Blust (1999), p. 330.
^ Jassem (2003), p. 103.
^ Cruz-Ferreira (1995), p. 91.
^ Jones & Ward (1969), p. 99.
^ Bauer, Michael. Blas na Gàidhlig: The Practical Guide to Gaelic Pronunciation. Glasgow: Akerbeltz, 2011.
^ Landau et al. (1999), p. 66.
^ Pretnar & Tokarz (1980), p. 21.
^ Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003), p. 255.
^ Engstrand (1999), p. 141.
^ S. Buk; J. Mačutek; A. Rovenchak (2008). "Some properties of the Ukrainian writing system". Glottometrics. 16: 63–79. arXiv:0802.4198.
^ Danyenko & Vakulenko (1995), p. 4.
^ a b Sjoberg (1963), p. 10.
^ Thompson (1959), pp. 458–461.
^ Merrill (2008), p. 108.
^ Basbøll (2005), p. 61.
^ Grønnum (2005), p. 120.
^ Gussenhoven (1992), p. 45.
^ a b Wells (1982), p. 515.
^ Szende (1994), p. 91.
^ a b Gilles & Trouvain (2013), pp. 67–68.
^ Palatalization in Brazilian Portuguese revisited Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine (in Portuguese)
^ a b Lass (2002), p. 120.
^ a b Scobbie, Gordeeva & Matthews (2006), p. 4.
^ a b Wells (1982), p. 388.
^ a b Mangold (2005), p. 47.
^ a b Arvaniti (2007), p. 10.
^ a b Kristoffersen (2000), p. 22.
^ a b Mahootian (2002:287–289)
^ a b Kráľ (1988), p. 72.
^ a b Pavlík (2004), pp. 98–99.

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External links

List of languages with [t] on PHOIBLE