In the last part in the series about the physiological part of speech production, we now have the process that involves the speech organs in the mouth, such as the hard palate, tongue, and lips. This is where one would encounter terms such as “labial”, “velar”, and “coronal”. This process of speech production seems to involve many such terms commonly used by phonologists and phoneticians, and over the course of today’s introduction, we will try to demystify some of these terms, and perhaps talk more about them in future introductions.
This process is known as articulation, it is defined as the process in which an airstream, usually in the form of some kind of aerodynamic energy, is converted into acoustic energy in the form of speech, through the interaction with physiological structures. Previously, we have looked at how airflows are generated, plus the variation of sound when this airflow passes through the glottis or the pharynx. Yet, we have not really talked further about the sounds that we can make from this airstream besides broad categories like click consonants, implosives, ejectives, and the like. It is the articulatory processes that introduce more variation in the sound quality produced from a given generated airflow, which usually involves creating a narrow channel between two certain speech organs to channel the air in a certain way.
Articulation typically has two defining characteristics — the place, and manner. The place of articulation is defined as the location in the mouth in which the most obstruction occurs to the airflow, while the manner of articulation is defined as the pattern in which this obstruction is formed or is released.
For example, the sound /p/ involves the maximum obstruction at the lips, hence it is referred to as a “bilabial” (two lips), while the manner in which it is formed involves the full or almost-full obstruction of the airflow behind the place of articulation, creating a pressure buildup there. This is then suddenly released by the lips, creating some sort of a burst in sound. Thus, the manner in which this obstruction forms is termed as a “stop“, because the airflow is stopped by the obstruction. However, you might also encounter the term “plosive“, because of the sudden release of air during release, a plosion of sorts.
There are several different places of articulation involving different parts of the mouth, larynx, and the nasal cavity, which interact with phonation and airstream mechanisms to ultimately produce the sounds we hear. Today, we will talk about the various parts involved in this very process, split into consonants and vowels. These organs are commonly referred to as articulators.
Consonants
The place and manner of articulation, alongside voicing and other phonation types, and airstream mechanisms are used to characterise the various consonant sounds there are. While there are over a dozen different places of articulation, these can be classified in 5 broad categories, which we will go through from the front-most (the lips) to the back.
Labial – The lips
These consonants always involve the use of one or both lips. This can occur with both lips (bilabial), upper teeth and lower lip (labiodental), and the tongue and upper lip (linguolabial). Technically speaking though, as the linguolabial consonants involve the tip of the tongue as well, these consonants may also be considered as coronal ones instead.
We are generally familiarised with the bilabial consonants, and it is perhaps the most widespread group amongst the labial consonants. This includes the /p/, /b/, and /m/ sounds commonly found in pretty much all Indo-European languages, as with most of the world’s languages. The few exceptions that lack bilabial consonants outright are the Oneida and Wichita languages spoken in North America.
A less common group of labial consonants are the labiodental ones, which include the /f/ and /v/ sounds. Most of these sounds are generally fricatives (see below for manners of articulation), but affricates, plosives, and nasal manners of articulations are possible for labiodental consonants, albeit occurring in much fewer of the world’s languages. Perhaps a popular example is the ‘pf’ sound in German, such as words like Pferd (horse) and Pfirsich (peach), which is a voiceless labiodental affricate represented by the International Phonetic Alphabet characters [pΜͺf].
And for the least common one amongst the labial consonants, we have the linguolabial consonants. There are two ways of transcribing these sounds using the International Phonetic Alphabet, such as using a seagull diacritic below the alveolar consonant, or an apical diacritic below a bilabial consonant. Perhaps the most well-known group of languages that use linguolabial consonants would be the indigenous languages of Vanuatu, which largely belong to the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian language family. This includes languages like Araki and Tangoa.
Coronal – The tongue tip
The tip of the tongue is perhaps the most mobile part of the tongue, giving it a wide range of possible consonant sounds that could be made with it, with consonants being attested for every manner of articulation. Sub-groups of the coronal consonants may also be classified by the part of the tongue tip used in articulation, such as the top face of the tongue tip (apical), the blade of the tongue (laminal), and the bottom face of the tongue tip (sub-apical).
But if we classify this from the front to back of the mouth where the tongue tip may make contact or some form of obstruction or narrowing, we get the dental and alveolar consonants, retroflex consonants, and post-alveolar consonants.
Some languages differentiate between dental (teeth) and alveolar (alveolar ridge just behind the teeth) consonants. This is where we get the /t/ and /d/ sounds we are more or less familiar with, which can be articulated more dentally in some English accents. Interdental consonants, on the other hand, involve the tip or blade of the tongue sticking out in front of the teeth, usually the incisors. Such consonants are rare however, with some of them occurring in some languages of the Philippines, West Africa, and some variants of the Amis and Mapuche languages in Taiwan and Chile respectively.
Retroflex consonants are perhaps some of the most iconic sounds of languages in the Indian subcontinent and Australia. These sounds typically involve the tongue being curled back in some way (hence retro- and -flex), making contact or narrowing with another articulator, usually the roof of the mouth. This may involve the tongue tip or the underside of the tongue, making apical and sub-apical retroflex consonants possible.
Sometimes, retroflex consonants may also be grouped together under a larger umbrella called the post-alveolar consonants, where the place of articulation in question is defined as ‘just behind the alveolar ridge’. Thus, retroflex consonants may be referred to as apical post-alveolar consonants, and the ‘sh’ sound in English may be called a voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant.
Dorsal – The tongue body
With the tongue body, there are three possible points of contact to make. One is the hard palate, giving us the pre-palatal and palatal consonants. Further back, there is the velum, or the soft palate, which gives us the velar consonants. And the furthest back gives us the uvula, which gives us the uvular consonants. This is where we get consonants like /c/, /Ι/, /k/, and /q/ sounds. Perhaps the most common palatal consonant here is the /j/ sound, the palatal approximant consonant.
To try to picture velar consonant articulation, try making the sound /k/ or /g/. This would involve making contact or narrowing of space between the body of your tongue and the soft palate. This also gives us the /x/ sound we often hear in languages such as German (like brauchen, ‘to need’). To some extent, this is also where we would find the /w/ sound with its voiceless counterpart, although it is technically also articulated using the lips, making it a labio-velar approximant.
Lastly, we have the uvular consonants. This involves the body of the tongue making contact with the punching bag-like extension of the soft palate at the back of your mouth. This is perhaps the least common category of dorsal consonants, with many languages of America and Africa generally lacking this place of articulation. Sounds like /q/, /N/, and /G/ would fall under this category, with one of the most common sounds we would encounter is the ‘guttural R’ sound in French. This would be the voiced uvular fricative, written as [Κ] using the International Phonetic Alphabet. Other common sounds we would encounter include the /q/ sound present in languages like Arabic, and even the /Ο/ sound in languages like Arabic and Spanish.
Radical – The tongue root
The radical consonants are also sometimes referred to as the pharyngeal or epiglottal consonants as they are articulated using the pharynx, which consists of speech organs such as the tongue root and the epiglottis. Pharyngeal consonants typically occur as fricatives or as approximants (see below for manners of articulation), while an epiglottal plosive consonant does occur in some of the world’s languages such as Dahalo and Amis. Two well-known examples of pharyngeal consonants are the Arabic voiceless and voiced pharyngeal fricatives, which are represented by the letters Ψ and ΨΉ respectively, or by the International Phonetic Alphabet letters [Δ§] and [Κ] respectively.
Glottal – The glottis
This one is a bit weird since it can also play a part in phonation as well as altering airstream mechanisms by stopping it (remember glottal stop?). Therefore, there are only a few glottal consonants that are physiologically possible, with only 3 in total that can occur in the world’s languages. These are the glottal stop, the /h/ sound, or the voiceless glottal fricative, and the /Ι¦/ sound, or the voiced glottal fricative. An affricate and approximant also occur with the glottis, but these are generally not phonemically distinguished, but exist as allophones of other consonants.
Manners of articulation give further variation in the consonants that can be produced through articulation. These may be described as what happens to a given airflow or how articulators come into contact or are released. Airstream mechanisms may also be used to describe the manner of articulation though, which gives us ejective, implosive, and click consonants alongside the manners of articulation below, in addition to the stops or plosives mentioned earlier.
Firstly, we have the taps, flaps, and trills. The tap and flap are consonants that usually involve the tongue striking the roof of the mouth, but the main distinction between the two terms is how this motion happens; the tap involves striking in a single motion, but the flap involves striking in passing. There are only a few languages that phonemically distinguish between the two sounds though, which may be why some people use the terms interchangeably. The trill, on the other hand, involves the vibration of the articulator, creating an oscillation between the opening and closing of the articulators. The articulators involved in producing trills include the lips (which may be likened to blowing a raspberry), the tongue (giving us alveolar and retroflex trills), the uvula, and the epiglottis.
Next we have the fricatives, sibilants, and affricates. These are consonants that involve adding turbulence to the airstream through partial obstruction of the vocal tract at the place of articulation. For example, /f/ is a fricative produced by a partial obstruction of the lower lip and upper teeth, hence it is called a [voiceless] labiodental fricative. Sibilants include sounds like /s/ and /z/, where this airstream is channeled towards the teeth, while affricates involve a stop consonant that is followed by a fricative consonant, like the /ts/ and /tΚ/ sounds.
Following which we have the laterals and approximants. Lateral consonants involve the channeling of the airflow to one or both sides of the mouth by obstructing or partially obstructing the center. In some consonants, airflow may be directed over the tongue. Quite a few consonants actually combine the lateral with one other manner of articulation, such as the approximant. The approximant is where the articulators are brought together to form a narrow channel, but unlike the fricatives, they do not produce a turbulent airflow. Combining the two manners of articulation, we can get examples like the /l/ sound, called the voiced alveolar lateral approximant.
Lastly, we have the nasal consonants. This includes sounds like /n/ and /m/, which are consonants that involve the closure of the oral cavity at the place of articulation and the lowering of the soft palate, such that the airflow is directed through the nasal cavity instead. However, the mouth may be used as a so-called resonance chamber for the consonant to be produced. While we tend to associate nasal consonants with being voiced, voiceless nasal consonants do exist, and are distinguished in languages such as Burmese.
Vowels
Vowels are generally articulated using three speech organs, with the glottis being more predominantly involved in the phonation front of things (see the Phonation part of this series). As you have picked up during the introduction to phonation, vowels are usually voiced, meaning that vocal cord vibration is involved. There are three speech organs involved in producing vowel sounds, making variations of vowel qualities that may be distinguished in many languages across the world.
Firstly, the tongue. When we talk about front, back, close, open, and mid vowels, this is the speech organ that these terms largely pertain to. The tongue is a really flexible organ, being able to move in such a way that its shape would affect the vowel quality, defined as vowel height, and vowel front/backness. Additionally, the front of the tongue may be changed to produce a rhotic vowel, which sounds like the ‘-er’ in words like ‘father’ in various English accents such as the General American accent. This is what the vowel diagram generally represents, a tool that shows where vowels lie in terms of front/backness, using the horizontal axis, and vowel height (or openness) using the vertical axis. This would be populated with vowels used in the International Phonetic Alphabet, giving us this iconic diagram:
Next, we have the lips. The lips generally affect how rounded the vowel sounds are, depending on the shape and protrusion of the lips when articulating a certain vowel. There are generally two types of vowel rounding, namely, protrusion, where the corners of the mouth are brought closer together and form a protrusion, and compression, where the corners of the mouth are brought closer together, but there is no protrusion. Instead, the lips are also drawn together horizontally. To demonstrate protrusion, try pronouncing the sound /o/ and /u/ in front of a mirror, and observe the protrusion rounding. And for examples of compression rounding, you can try saying the German ΓΌ, French u, or the Japanese u. In these cases, you would observe that these vowels generally do not involve the protrusion of lips, quite the contrary.
Lastly, we have the velum. The velum controls the airflow that would pass through the nasal cavity. Thus in articulation, the velum position would affect the vowel’s nasal quality. A lowered velum would produce nasal vowels, which can be distinguished in languages like French and Polish. There are of course, other speech organs that would alter the quality of the vowel, like the glottis and pharynx, but these are better described as phonation processes.
As you have seen, the tongue is an important speech organ in articulation, which helps explain why it hurts a lot to talk when you have tongue ulcers. As the tongue is usually involved in contact with different places of articulation, depending on where the tongue ulcer is, it could also affect the manner of articulation by the speaker as they might want to avoid irritating the ulcer and causing pain.
The Pink Trombone is perhaps the most well-known project today that gives us a hands-on experience on how human sounds are produced. Here, you can adjust the tongue position to reflect vowel quality, and experiment how different points of articulation can create different sounds. Another great visual in witnessing articulation is with real-time magnetic resonance imaging, or real-time MRI. It is this method from which we get a cross-sectional view of the oral and nasal cavity, and larynx as we speak, allowing us to picture the places and manners of articulation when we make different sounds.
Other kinds of techniques you will come across include palatography, which assesses the contact point between the tongue and an articulator to evaluate the place of articulation, and in newer electrode-based techniques, the duration of contact as well as other characteristics regarding articulation. This helps phoneticians understand more about how articulation occurs in speakers.
And so, this has been a rather lengthy introduction to many of the phonetics terms you would encounter when describing sounds in a language. We have talked about the different kinds of airstreams that may be produced, as well as the various ways these airstreams may be modified by other processes that occur in our vocal tract. However, we have not talked about other kinds of features languages may phonemically distinguish by, with the most predominant one being tone and pitch-accent. Perhaps we will touch on these topics in future introductions, but anyway, I hope this series of introductions has made you familiarised with the main terms used to describe vowels and consonants, and provided you a brief overview of the world of phonetics and phonology.
Further reading
Gregory, A. (2014) ‘The Laryngeal Aspects of Infant Language Acquisition’, PhD thesis.
Ladefoged, P. (1993) ‘Linguistic phonetic fieldwork: a practical guide’, Working Papers in Phonetics, 84, pp. 1 – 24.
Ladefoged, P. & Maddieson, I. (1996) The sounds of the world’s languages. Cambridge, MA, Blackwells.
Maddieson, I., SpajiΔ, S., Sands, B., Ladefoged, P. (1993) ‘Phonetic structures of Dahalo’, Working Papers in Phonetics, 84, pp. 25 – 66.
Sands, B., Maddieson, I., Ladefoged, P. (1993) ‘The phonetics structures of Hadza’, Working Papers in Phonetics, 84, pp. 67 – 88.
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