# Dental, alveolar, postalveolar consonants (IPA)



## amikama

Hi,

This is the IPA consonant chart:






I've noticed that in the Dental-Alveolar-Postalveolar column only one cell is split into 3 (the fricatives).
Why so? Does it mean that e.g. /t d/ are also dental and postalveolar, not only alveolar?

Thanks.


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## Zec

Hello,

yes, you're right! The basic IPA chart is not totally precise, its _t_ and _d_ can represent dental, alveolar and postalveolar sounds. If needed, diacritics can be added to make this explicit, e.g. _t̪ d̪ _for dentals and _t̺ d̺ _for (apical) alveolars (I'm not sure what to use for postalveolars, maybe _t̠ d̠_, the diacritic simply means "retracted", and I've seen it used for different kinds of sounds between alveolar and palatal).


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## entangledbank

Historically, it was devised for European languages. English makes all three distinctions in the fricatives, and French, German and Spanish make two of them. But they all just have one set of stops or nasals or laterals, dental in French and alveolar in English, so only one set of symbols was used. For languages that distinguish in those articulations, you have to go southern India or Australia. By the time they did get to them, it was too firmly established that both English and French use the symbols [t d].


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## Penyafort

In the case of English, aspiration should be added to the distinction, marked diacritically with a superscript aitch. English speakers may not perceive it, but to speakers of other European languages it's very obvious.


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## berndf

Like with other Germanic languages. There are some exceptions. In st- clusters the t remains unaspirated in all Germanic languages. In addition, in some varieties of English fortis stops are unaspirated in unstressed syllables.


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## jimquk

berndf said:


> Like with other Germanic languages. There are some exceptions. In st- clusters the t remains unaspirated in all Germanic languages. In addition, in some varieties of English fortis stops are unaspirated in unstressed syllables.


My impression is that the /t/ in /st-/ is more like a /d/ than a /t/, and similarly with /sk-/ and /sp-/.

I can't be quite sure, but I feel that the plosive is at least partially voiced. Certainly mistake sounds nothing like mis-take, but a lot like an imaginary Miss Dake.

In fact, is there any good reason to analyse this combination as /st/ rather than /sd/?


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## berndf

jimquk said:


> My impression is that the /t/ in /st-/ is more like a /d/ than a /t/, and similarly with /sk-/ and /sp-/.


Yes, they remain unaspirated. 


jimquk said:


> I can't be quite sure, but I feel that the plosive is at least partially voiced.


Lack of aspiration is sufficient to perceive a stop as voiced in many context in many Germanic languages.


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## gburtonio

jimquk said:


> In fact, is there any good reason to analyse this combination as /st/ rather than /sd/?



The short answer is that there probably isn't, and that we only transcribe plosives after /s/ as /st sk sp/ because of tradition, which itself has been influenced by spelling.

A practical argument put forward for retaining /st sk sp/ is that speakers of languages that assimilate /s/ to /z/ before a voiced consonant might end up pronouncing the clusters as /zb zg zd/ if they saw /sb sg sd/ in transcriptions.


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## berndf

If is true, though, that if /sb-/, /sd-/ or /sg-/ existed natively in Germanic languages, it would not be possible to maintain perceptual separation in hypothetical minimal pairs with /sp-/ vs. /sb-/, /st-/ vs. /sd-/ and /sk-/ vs. /sg-/.


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## gburtonio

berndf said:


> If is true, though, that if /sb-/, /sd-/ or /sg-/ existed natively in Germanic languages, it would not be possible to maintain perceptual separation in hypothetical minimal pairs with /sp-/ vs. /sb-/, /st-/ vs. /sd-/ and /sk-/ vs. /sg-/.



Well, yes, but that's the case regardless of which side you come down in in terms of the transcription/analysis, isn't it? I mean, if one favours the transcriptions as /sb sd sg/, then one is effectively saying that /sp st sk/ are not possible in English. So there would be no need to perceive the difference between the hypothetical minimal pairs.


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## berndf

Yes, we agree, Germanic has only one slate _s_+plosive clusters and how you spell them is phonologically irrelevant. But all European languages have only one slate of those clusters and outside of Germanic there is no ambiguity: the stops are voiceless. And I guess keeping consistency with languages we have heavily borrowed from is the main advantage of spelling them <sp>, <st> and <sk>.


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## Red Arrow

berndf said:


> Yes, we agree, Germanic has only one slate _s_+plosive clusters and how you spell them is phonologically irrelevant. But all European languages have only one slate of those clusters and outside of Germanic there is no ambiguity: the stops are voiceless. And I guess keeping consistency with languages we have heavily borrowed from is the main advantage of spelling them <sp>, <st> and <sk>.


This is true, but we might as well spell them correctly. The T in stupid is the same as the T is smart. It is unaspirated and unvoiced.

You could use the same argument to write the word sfinx as "svinx" or "zfinx", but "sfinx" is still the best way to write it.


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## Stoggler

Red Arrow said:


> but "sfinx" is still the best way to write it.


Do you mean Sphinx...?


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## Sobakus

Red Arrow said:


> This is true, but we might as well spell them correctly. The T in stupid is the same as the T is smart. It is unaspirated and unvoiced.
> 
> You could use the same argument to write the word sfinx as "svinx" or "zfinx", but "sfinx" is still the best way to write it.


The /t/ in smart is aspirated, as also in fast; and the /t/ in stupid is [t͡ʃ] in BE, I'd pick a different example. It's not the same argument with f/v because /sf/ and /sv/ are both possible sequences in American English, while the discussion is about how to analyse the only possible sequence of initial /s/ + stop. The choice of spelling is a consequence of the choice of analysis.


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## berndf

Red Arrow said:


> ...the T is smart. It is unaspirated and unvoiced.


Only in some varieties. Generally the same that also do not aspirate initial fortis stops in unstressed syllables.


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> Only in some varieties. Generally the same that also do not aspirate initial fortis stops in unstressed syllables.


Unaspirated final voiceless stops in English? Could you demonstrate? The only situation I can think of where a final /t/ lacks aspiration is when it's a glottal stop.


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## berndf

Sobakus said:


> Unaspirated final voiceless stops in English? Could you demonstrate? The only situation I can think of where a final /t/ lacks aspiration is when it's a glottal stop, and just maybe when it's a dental stop followed by one (you can hear that in some British accents).


How to pronounce hat in English - Definition and synonyms of hat in English

The third one (falconfling)


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> How to pronounce hat in English - Definition and synonyms of hat in English
> 
> The third one (falconfling)


Oh yes, the unreleased ones in AmE. I think these are the same varieties that merge /t~d/ intervocalically, but not when initial (stressed or not); do you have examples of unaspirated unstressed initials?


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## berndf

t~d is intervocalic. Final d and t are distinguished.


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> t~d is intervocalic. Final d and t are distinguished.


Yes, unreleased /t/ seems to be characteristic of varieties where intervocalic t~d aren't distinguished, and not of varieties where initial unstressed fortis stops are not distinguished from lenis ones, because I don't remember coming across such varieties. That's why I've asked you for examples.


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## Red Arrow

Stoggler said:


> Do you mean Sphinx...?


Oops. In Dutch, it's sfinx.


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## Sobakus

berndf said:


> Only in some varieties. Generally the same that also do not aspirate initial fortis stops in unstressed syllables.


Actually I think I get it now: many AmE varieties have the fortis-lenis contrast shifted in the direction of lenis compared to BE, so lenis stops are normally voiced initially, and fortis stops can accordingly be less aspirated. You think that this lack of aspiration is the same phenomenon as unreleased /t/s: both are supposedly de-specified for [aspirated].

I think these are different: aspiration is famously a continuum, so one doesn't despecify it, one increases or decreased Voice Onset Time - the gap between the consonant and VOT is aspiration itself. With final plosives, these can be released or unreleased, and this release can be aspirated or vocalic. Vocalic is the Italian or French schwa-release, and aspirated is what should happen in all the other instances, even in languages like Slavic ones which lack aspiration. Therefore what's salient about the American unaspirated final stops is their lack of oral release, with lack of aspiration being a natural consequence.

That lack of oral release, to me, must clearly be the same underlying/historic phenomenon as the British glottal stops; in fact I bet in some varieties these would be allophonic. This is why I associate it with the intervocalic t~d merger, which I think is a development of the same phenomenon as intervocalic /t/ glottalisation in BE. In fact IIRC it's known to operate under the same conditions, only with a different phonetic realisation (alveolar flap~tap), which is what leads to the merger.


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## Forero

jimquk said:


> My impression is that the /t/ in /st-/ is more like a /d/ than a /t/, and similarly with /sk-/ and /sp-/.
> 
> I can't be quite sure, but I feel that the plosive is at least partially voiced. Certainly mistake sounds nothing like mis-take, but a lot like an imaginary Miss Dake.
> 
> In fact, is there any good reason to analyse this combination as /st/ rather than /sd/?


I hear _mis-take_, _mistake_, and _Miss Dake _as three different things. Both /t/s are unvoiced, and the /d/ is voiced.

Similarly for _Pike's Peak_, _pike speak, and pike's beak_: All the /p/s are unvoiced, and the /b/ is voiced. Of course the /p/ is unaspirated in _speak_.

In my Southern American variety of English, voiced vs. unvoiced distinguishes phonemes, /p/ vs. /b/, /t/ vs. /d/, /k/ vs. /g/, and the amount of aspiration is only used to (help) distinguish stressed vs. unstressed and syllable boundaries.

My "d" in _width_ is not consistently voiced (I think it depends on how fast I'm talking), but I pronounce it with the front, not the tip, of my tongue, and with the tip of my tongue already in position for the /θ/. I wouldn't call such a "d" dental though.

So I would call all my /t/s and /d/s alveolar - in English.

In Spanish, /t/ and /d/ are mostly dental, but /d/ is sometimes interdental, sometimes unvoiced, sometimes an approximate, and sometimes alveolar. The /tl/ combination (in words like "Tlaxcala" and "Popocatépetl") has the tongue tip in alveolar position and it is the sides of the tongue that release into the unvoiced clear /l/.


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## jimquk

Forero said:


> I hear _mis-take_, _mistake_, and _Miss Dake _as three different things. Both /t/s are unvoiced, and the /d/ is voiced.
> 
> Similarly for _Pike's Peak_, _pike speak, and pike's beak_: All the /p/s are unvoiced, and the /b/ is voiced. Of course the /p/ is unaspirated in _speak_.
> 
> In my Southern American variety of English, voiced vs. unvoiced distinguishes phonemes, /p/ vs. /b/, /t/ vs. /d/, /k/ vs. /g/, and the amount of aspiration is only used to (help) distinguish stressed vs. unstressed and syllable boundaries.
> 
> My "d" in _width_ is not consistently voiced (I think it depends on how fast I'm talking), but I pronounce it with the front, not the tip, of my tongue, and with the tip of my tongue already in position for the /θ/. I wouldn't call such a "d" dental though.
> 
> So I would call all my /t/s and /d/s alveolar - in English.
> 
> In Spanish, /t/ and /d/ are mostly dental, but /d/ is sometimes interdental, sometimes unvoiced, sometimes an approximate, and sometimes alveolar. The /tl/ combination (in words like "Tlaxcala" and "Popocatépetl") has the tongue tip in alveolar position and it is the sides of the tongue that release into the unvoiced clear /l/.


For me, Pike speak and Pike's beak are indistinguishable except in careful speech, where the word boundaries are clearly maintained: Pike!  Speak! is of course distinct.

As for Width, it's pretty consistently an interdental /t/ with shortening of the vowel.

Although I speak a reasonable Spanish, here in sunny Manchester England we don't have much occasion to pronounce Tlaxcala, where I would incline to preserve the /sh/ rather than /x/ for no other reason than that I like the sound...


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