Articulatory Phonetics 

Places of articulation

1. Bilabial

(Made with the two lips.) Say words such as "pie, buy, my" and note

how the lips come together for the first sound in each of these words.

Find a comparable set of words with bilabial sounds at the end.

2. Labiodental

(Lower lip and upper front teeth.) Most people, when saying words

such as "fie, vie," raise the lower lip until it nearly touches the upper

front teeth.

3. Dental

(Tongue tip or blade and upper front teeth.) Say the words "thigh, thy."

Some people (most speakers of American English) have the tip of the

tongue protruding between the upper and lower front teeth; others

(most speakers of British English) have it close behind the upper front

teeth. Both these kinds of sounds are normal in English, and both may

be called dental. If a distinction is needed, sounds in which the tongue

protrudes between the teeth may be called interdental.

4. Alveolar

(Tongue tip or blade and the alveolar ridge.) Again there are two possibilities

in English, and you should find out which you use. You may

pronounce words such as "tie, die, nigh, sigh, zeal, lie" using the tip of

the tongue or the blade of the tongue. Feel how you normally make the

alveolar consonants in each of these words, and then try to make them

in the other way. A good way to appreciate the difference between

dental and alveolar sounds is to say "ten" and "tenth" (or "n" and

"nth"). Which n is farther back? (Most people make the one in the first

of each of these pairs of words on the alveolar ridge and the second as

a dental sound with the tongue touching the upper front teeth.)

5. Retroflex

(Tongue tip and the back of the alveolar ridge.) Many speakers of

English do not use retroflex sounds at all. But for some, retroflex

sounds occur initially in words such as "rye, row, ray." Note the position

of the tip of your tongue in these words. Speakers who pronounce

r at the ends of words may also have retroflex sounds with the tip of

the tongue raised in "ire, hour, air."

6. Palato-Alveolar

(Tongue blade and the back of the alveolar ridge.) Say words such as

"shy, she, show." During the consonants, the tip of your tongue may be

down behind the lower front teeth, or it may be up near the alveolar

ridge, but the blade of the tongue is always close to the back part of the

alveolar ridge. Try saying "shipshape" with your tongue tip up on one

occasion and down on another. Note that the blade of the tongue will

always be raised. You may be able to feel the place of articulation

more distinctly if you hold the position while taking in a breath

through the mouth. The incoming air cools the blade of the tongue and

the back part of the alveolar ridge.

7. Palatal

(Front of the tongue and hard palate.) Say the word "you" very slowly

so that you can isolate the consonant at the beginning. If you say this

consonant by itself, you should be able to feel that the front of the

tongue is raised toward the hard palate. Try to hold the consonant position

and breathe inward through the mouth. You will probably be able

to feel the rush of cold air between the front of the tongue and the hard

palate.

8. Velar

(Back of the tongue and soft palate.) The consonants that have the farthest

back place of articulation in English are those that occur at the

end of "hack, hag, hang." In all these sounds, the back of the tongue is

raised so that it touches the velum.

As you can tell from the descriptions of these articulations, the first

two, bilabial and labiodental, can be classified as labial, involving at least

the lower lip; the next four, dental, alveolar, retroflex and palato-alveolar,

are coronal articulations, with the tip or blade of the tongue raised; and the

last, velar, is a dorsal articulation, using the back of the tongue. Palatal

sounds are sometimes classified as coronal articulations, and sometimes as

dorsal articulations, a point to which we shall return.