alveolar consonant
consonants articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge
AI overview
An alveolar consonant is a speech sound made by placing your tongue against the bumpy ridge just behind your upper front teeth. These consonants, like the "t," "d," and "s" sounds in English, are among the most common consonants across the world's languages.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
Alveolar consonants (/ælˈviːələr/ ; UK also /ælviˈoʊlə/) are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, so called because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated with the tip of the tongue (the apical consonants), as in English, or with the flat of the tongue just above the tip (the "blade" of the tongue; called laminal consonants), as in French and Spanish.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) does not have separate symbols for the alveolar consonants. Rather, the same symbol is used for all coronal places of articulation that are not palatalized like English palato-alveolar sh, or retroflex. To disambiguate, the bridge ([s̪, t̪, n̪, l̪], etc.) may be used for a dental consonant, or the under-bar ([s̠, t̠, n̠, l̠], etc.) may be used for the postalveolars. [s̪] differs from dental [θ] in that the former is a sibilant and the latter is not. [s̠] differs from postalveolar [ʃ] in being unpalatalized.