10 Describing Consonants: Place of Articulation
Describing consonants: Place of articulation
Consonants as constrictions
Consonants are phones that are created with relatively narrow constrictions somewhere in the vocal tract. These constrictions are usually made by moving at least one part of the vocal tract towards another, so that they are touching or very close together. The moving part is called the active or lower articulator, and its target is called the passive or upper articulator. Vowels have wider openings than consonants, so they are not usually described with the terms used here.
Active articulators
- the lower lip, which is used for the consonants at the beginning of the English words pin and fin
- the tongue tip (the frontest part of the tongue; also called the apex), which is used for the consonants at the beginning of the English words tin and sin
- the tongue blade (the region just behind the tongue tip; also called the lamina), which is used for the consonants at the beginning of the English words thin and chin
- the tongue front (the tip and blade together as a unit, also called the corona); it is useful to have a unified term for the tip and blade together, since they are so small and so close, and languages, and even individual speakers of the same language, may vary in which articulator is used for similar phones; for example, while many English speakers use the tongue tip for the consonant at the beginning of the word tin, other speakers may use the tongue blade or even the entire tongue front; however, while there may be variation in some languages, the distinction between the tip and blade is crucial in others, such as Basque (a language isolate spoken in Spain and France), which distinguishes the words su ‘fire’ and zu ‘you’, both of which sound roughly like the English word sue, with the tongue tip used for su and the tongue blade used for zu (although this distinction has been lost for some speakers under influence from Spanish; Hualde 2010)
- the tongue back (the upper portion of the tongue, excluding the front; also called the dorsum), which is used for the consonants at the beginning of the English words kin and gone
- the tongue root (the lower portion of the tongue in the pharynx; also called the radix), which is not used for consonants in English but is used for consonants in some languages, such as Nuu-chah-nulth (a.k.a. Nootka, an endangered language of the Wakashan family, spoken in British Columbia; Kim 2003)
- the epiglottis (the large flap at the bottom of the pharynx that can cover the trachea to block food from entering the lungs, forcing it to go into the esophagus instead), which is not used for consonants in English but is used in for consonants in some languages, such as Alutor (a Chukotkan language of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan, spoken in Russia; Sylak-Glassman 2014)
Note that while the lower teeth could theoretically be an active articulator (we can move them towards the upper lip, for example), it tu