Phonetics: Places and Manners of Articulation

• Articulation is the production of speech sounds by the movement of the speech organs.
• Bilabials are produced by bringing the lips together. This place of articulation can easily be illustrated by noting the position of the lips for the initial sounds in such words as pool, boot, and money.
• Labiodentals are produced with the lower lip against the upper teeth or gums. The sound [v] is an example of this type of consonant.
• Interdenentals are articulated by the tongue and teeth, in contrast to the labiodentals, which involve the articulation of the lower lip and teeth. The two dentals in English are found in the initial sounds in think and then.
• Alveolar sounds are produced by raising the tip or blade of the tongue to the alveolar ridge, the bony ridge behind the upper teeth.
• Palatal sounds are formed when the blade of the tongue articulates with the back of the alveolar ridge or palate.
• Velar sounds are created when the back of the tongue articulates with the soft palate. The final sounds in hack, hag, and hang are velar sounds.
• Labiovelar sounds are created by rounding the lips while the back of the tongue is raised in the velar region. The initial sound in witch is an example of this sound.
• Glottal sounds are articulated by the glottis.
• Nasals are produced in both the nasal and oral cavities.
• Oral sounds occur when the velum (soft palate) is usually in a raised position, blocking the airstream’s passage into the nasal cavity.
• If the velum is lowered, air can escape through both the oral and nasal cavities. The sound that results is called nasal.
• There are only three nasal consonants in English.
• Stops are sounds created by momentarily cutting off the airstream. These sounds are called stops or plosives.
•  A stop cannot be prolonged.
• Aspiration is the amount of air that is produced upon the release of a stop.
• diacritic marks are added to the main phonetic symbol for a sound to clarify details of pronunciation.
• Fricatives are produced by an incomplete obstruction of the airstream. Instead of the completed obstruction that produces the stops, the airstream is only partially obstructed, creating turbulence (friction) beyond the constriction.
• Affricates are each, in a sense, two sounds. It starts out as a stop but ends up as a fricative.
• Liquids are distinguished from the other classes of sounds in that they involve only minimal obstruction of the airstream and friction is not produced.
• Glides are what most elementary school children are taught to label as semi-vowels. The obstruction of the airstream is less than in other consonants, making semi-vowels similar in this respect to vowels.