Dental consonant

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Places of articulation
Labial
Bilabial
Labial-velar
Labial-alveolar
Labiodental
Bidental
Coronal
Linguolabial
Interdental
Dental
Alveolar
Apical
Laminal
Postalveolar
Alveolo-palatal
Retroflex
Dorsal
Palatal
Labial-palatal
Velar
Uvular
Uvular-epiglottal
Radical
Pharyngeal
Epiglotto-pharyngeal
Epiglottal
Glottal
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[Edit]

In linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as /t/, /d/, /n/, and /l/ in some languages. Dentals are primarily distinguished from sounds in which contact is made with the tongue and the gum ridge, as in English (see Alveolar consonant), due to the acoustic similarity of the sounds and the fact that in the Roman alphabet they are generally written using the same symbols (t, d, n, and so on).

Contents

[edit] Dentals cross-linguistically

For many languages, such as Albanian or Russian, velarization is generally associated with more dental articulations of coronal consonants so that velarized consonants (such as Albanian /ɫ/) tend to be dental or denti-alveolar while non-velarized consonants tend to be retracted to an alveolar position.[1]

Sanskrit, Hindi and all other Indic languages have an entire set of dental plosives which occur phonemically as voiced and voiceless, and with or without aspiration. The nasal plosive /n/ also exists in these languages, but is quite alveolar and apical in articulation.[citation needed] To the Indian speaker, the alveolar /t/ and /d/ of English sound more like the corresponding retroflex consonants of his own language than the dentals.[citation needed]

Spanish /t/ and /d/ are laminal denti-alveolar[2] while /l/ and /n/ are prototypically alveolar but assimilate to the place of articulation of a following consonant. Likewise, Italian /t/, /d/, /t͡s/, /d͡z/ are denti-alveolar ([t̪], [d̪], [t̪͡s̪], and [d̪͡z̪] respectively) and /l/ and /n/ become denti-alveolar before a following dental consonant.[3]

Although denti-alveolar consonants are often described as dental, it is the rear-most point of contact that is most relevant, for this is what defines the maximum acoustic space of resonance and will give a consonant its characteristic sound.[citation needed] In the case of French, the rear-most contact is alveolar or sometimes slightly pre-alveolar.

[edit] Dental consonants in the world's languages

The dental/denti-alveolar consonants as transcribed by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA Description Example
Language Orthography IPA Meaning
Image:IPA-dental nasal.png dental nasal Spanish onda [on̪d̪a] wave
Image:IPA-voiceless dental plosive.png voiceless dental plosive Spanish toro [t̪oɾo] bull
Image:IPA-voiced dental plosive.png voiced dental plosive Spanish donde [d̪on̪d̪e] where
voiceless dental sibilant fricative Polish kosa [kos̪a] scythe
voiced dental sibilant fricative Polish koza [koz̪a] goat
Image:Xsampa-T2.png voiceless dental nonsibilant fricative
(also often called "interdental")		 English thing [θɪŋ] thing
Image:Xsampa-D2.png voiced dental nonsibilant fricative
(also often called "interdental")		 English this [ðɪs] this
Image:IPA-voiced dental approximant.png dental approximant Spanish codo [koð̞o] elbow
Image:IPA-dental lateral approximant.png dental lateral approximant Spanish alto [al̪t̪o] tall
Image:IPA-dental flap.png dental flap
Image:IPA-dental trill.png dental trill Marshallese Ebadon [ebɑr̪on̪] Ebadon
Image:IPA-dental ejective.png dental ejective
Image:IPA-voiced dental implosive.png voiced dental implosive
Image:Xsampa-barslash.png dental click release Xhosa ukúcola [uk’úkǀola] to grind fine

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Recasens & Espinosa (2005:4)
  2. ^ Martínez-Celdrán et al (2003:257)
  3. ^ Rogers & d'Arcangeli (2004:117)

[edit] Bibliography

  • Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Ana Ma. Fernández-Planas & Josefina Carrera-Sabaté (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255-259
  • Recasens, Daniel & Aina Espinosa (2005), "Articulatory, positional and coarticulatory characteristics for clear /l/ and dark /l/: evidence from two Catalan dialects", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 35 (1): 1-25
  • Rogers, Derek & Luciana d'Arcangeli (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117-121
  Consonants (List, table) See also: IPA, Vowels  
Pulmonics Bila​bial Labio​dental Den​tal Alve​olar Post-​alve​olar Retro​flex Pal​a​tal Ve​lar Uvu​lar Pha​ryn​geal Epi​glot​tal Glot​tal Non-pulmonics and other symbols
Nasals m ɱ n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ
Plosives p b p̪ b̪ t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Implo­­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ
Fricatives  ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Ejec­­tives  pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ
Approximants  ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Affricates  t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ t͡ɕ d͡ʑ t͡ʂ d͡ʐ t͡ɬ d͡ɮ p̪͡f
Trills ʙ r • ʀ • Other laterals  ɺ • ɫ
Flaps & Taps • ѵ ɾ ɽ • • Co-articulated fricatives  ɕ ʑ ɧ
Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ • • • Co-articulated approximants  ʍ w ɥ
Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help]
Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.