Place of articulation

In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation is where a sound is made in the mouth. It is the spot where moving parts of the mouth, like the tongue or lips, meet the still parts, like the teeth or the roof of the mouth. These sounds are called consonants.

The moving parts of the mouth are called active articulators, and the parts that stay still are called passive articulators. When these parts come together, they make different sounds. Along with how the sound is made and whether the voice box is used, the place of articulation helps give each consonant its special sound.

Vowels are different because they are made with an open mouth. We don’t talk about where vowels are made, but instead look at where they sit in a special space. This depends mostly on special sound frequencies and not as much on exactly where the tongue or lips are.

The words we use to talk about places of articulation help us talk about all the possible sounds, but no one language uses all of them. So, we don’t need to be very exact when we talk about the sounds in a particular language.

Overview

The human voice makes sounds in a special way. Air from the lungs moves through the trachea (windpipe), larynx (voice box), and pharynx (back of the throat). This air makes the vocal folds in the voice box vibrate, creating sound waves.

The shape of our lips, jaw, tongue, and soft palate changes these sound waves, giving them different qualities. The mouth sends these sounds out into the world. Sometimes, sounds like [m] and [n] get a special nasal sound from the nasal cavity.

The larynx

The larynx, also called the voice box, is made of cartilage and holds the vocal folds. When the muscles of the vocal folds tighten, air from the lungs makes them vibrate. This creates a buzzing feeling. In singing, how fast the vocal folds vibrate changes the pitch of the sound.

Similar vibrations can happen with the lips, as toddlers or trumpeters may notice. Stretching a rubber balloon tightly around the neck can make a squeak or buzz, depending on how tight it is and how much air is inside, much like the vocal folds in the larynx.

Active articulators

The active articulators are parts of our vocal system that we can move to make sounds. These parts usually include the tongue and lips. There are five main parts that can move: the lips, the front part of the tongue, the main body of the tongue, the root of the tongue together with the epiglottis, and the glottis. These parts work together in different ways to create various sounds.

These five main parts can be divided into nine smaller areas where sounds are made. These areas include the lower lip, different parts of the front of the tongue such as the tip and the surface just behind the tip, the body of the tongue, the base of the tongue and the throat, a part inside the throat, and the glottis at the back of the windpipe. In some sounds, both lips move together, but we usually say the lower lip is the active part. Similarly, in other sounds, the tongue touches the upper lip, but we still consider the tongue to be active.

Passive articulators

The passive articulators are the parts of the mouth that stay still while other parts move to make sounds. These parts can be from the lips to the back of the throat. Important places where sounds are made include the upper lip, the upper teeth, the gum line behind the teeth, the roof of the mouth, and the back of the throat.

Languages can tell sounds apart by where they are made in the mouth. There are nine main areas where sounds can be made, from the front of the mouth at the lips to the back near the throat. Sometimes, sounds can be made in areas between these main places, but languages usually only use a few of these areas to tell sounds apart.

Table of articulation combinations

This table shows how parts of our mouth work together to make sounds. Some special sounds, called sibilants, are shown in yellow. These sounds can change a little depending on how we shape our tongue.

Sometimes we combine two places in our mouth to describe a sound, but we usually just use the name of the main place. For example, we might call a sound "palatal" instead of "dorsal–palatal". If we need to be more exact, we can add words like "pre-" or "post-", such as "prepalatal", which means near the border between the postalveolar area and the hard palate.

Homorganic consonants

Main article: Homorganic consonant

Some sounds are made in the same place in the mouth. For example, in English, sounds like /n/, /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, and /l/ are all made with the tongue touching the roof of the mouth behind the teeth. We call these homorganic sounds. Other examples are the lip sounds /p/, /b/, /m/ and the back-of-the-mouth sounds /k/, /ɡ/, /ŋ/.

In many languages, a special rule helps words sound smoother. This rule says that certain nasal sounds must match the place of another sound that comes right after it. For example, in English, we say "in_tolerable" but "im_plausible". In Yoruba, the word for "is hiding" changes to match the sound that follows it.

Central and lateral articulation

Main article: Lateral consonant

When we make sounds with our tongue, we can use different parts of our mouth. The tongue can touch the roof of the mouth in different places to help make sounds. Sometimes, the air goes straight down the middle of the tongue, making a central sound. Other times, the air moves out to the side of the tongue, slipping between the tongue and the teeth, making a lateral sound. For example, the English “l” is a lateral sound because the air escapes to the side. Some languages have many different kinds of these lateral sounds.

Coarticulation

Some languages have sounds made with two places in the mouth at the same time. This is called coarticulation. When these sounds need two moving parts to make them, they are called doubly articulated. The most common doubly articulated sounds are labial–velar stops like [k͡p], [ɡ͡b] and less commonly [ŋ͡m], found in Western Africa and Central Africa.

More often, coarticulation adds a small extra movement. For example, English [w] is a sound made in the back of the mouth with a little lip rounding. Common ways to add these extra movements include:

• Labialization, rounding the lips while making a sound, like in [kʷ] and English [w].
• Palatalization, lifting the middle of the tongue toward the roof of the mouth, like in Russian [tʲ] and [ɕ].
• Velarization, lifting the back of the tongue toward the soft palate (velum), like in the English dark el, [lˠ] (also written [ɫ]).
• Pharyngealization, tightening the throat, like in Arabic "emphatic" [tˤ].