alveolar stop

{{refimprove|date=June 2019}}

In phonetics and phonology, an alveolar stop is a type of consonantal{{Cite web|url=http://depts.washington.edu/lingsup/ling200/consrand.php|title=List of Consonants|website=University of Washington|access-date=8 April 2019}} sound, made with the tongue in contact with the alveolar ridge located just behind the teeth (hence alveolar), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a stop consonant).{{Cite book|title=Handbook of the International Phonetic Association a guide to the use of the international phonetic alphabet|last=International Phonetic Association|date=2014|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521652360|oclc=931695762}} The most common sounds are the stops {{IPA|[t]}}{{Cite journal|last1=Liberman|first1=A. M.|last2=Cooper|first2=F. S.|last3=Shankweiler|first3=D. P.|last4=Studdert-Kennedy|first4=M.|date=1967|title=Perception of the speech code.|journal=Psychological Review|language=en|volume=74|issue=6|pages=431–461|doi=10.1037/h0020279|pmid=4170865|issn=1939-1471}} and {{IPA|[d]}}, as in English toe and doe, and the voiced nasal {{IPA|[n]}}. The 2-D finite element mode of the front part of the midsagittal tongue can stimulate the air pressed release of an alveolar stop.{{Cite journal|last=Chen|first=Lan|title=Effect of intraoral air pressure on the release of an alveolar stop closure|journal= The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America|volume=118|issue=3|pages=2026|doi=10.1121/1.4785776|year=2005|bibcode=2005ASAJ..118.2026C}} Alveolar consonants in children's productions have generally been demonstrated to undergo smaller vowel-related coarticulatory effects than labial and velar consonants, thus yielding consonant-specific patterns similar to those observed in adults.{{Cite journal|last=Zharkova|first=Natalia|date=2017-09-02|title=Voiceless alveolar stop coarticulation in typically developing 5-year-olds and 13-year-olds|journal=Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics|volume=31|issue=7–9|pages=503–513|doi=10.1080/02699206.2016.1268209|issn=0269-9206|pmid=28085509|s2cid=10243498|url=https://eprint.ncl.ac.uk/fulltext.aspx?url=252442/0CDC80DE-217E-406B-A892-3FA4AEA4C7D1.pdf&pub_id=252442}}

The upcoming vowel target is adjusted to demand force and effort during the coarticulating process.{{Cite journal|last=Zharkova|first=Natalie|title=Voiceless alveolar stop coarticulation in typically developing 5-year-olds and 13-year-olds|journal=Papers from the 16th ICPLA Conference, Halifax, Nova Scotia - 1|volume=31|issue=7–9|pages=503–513|doi=10.1080/02699206.2016.1268209|pmid=28085509|year=2017|s2cid=10243498|url=https://eprint.ncl.ac.uk/fulltext.aspx?url=252442/0CDC80DE-217E-406B-A892-3FA4AEA4C7D1.pdf&pub_id=252442}} More generally, several kinds are distinguished:

• {{IPA|[t]}}, voiceless alveolar plosive
• {{IPA|[d]}}, voiced alveolar plosive
• {{IPA|[n]}}, voiced alveolar nasal
• {{IPA|[n̥]}}, voiceless alveolar nasal
• {{IPA|[tʼ]}}, alveolar ejective
• {{IPA|[ɗ ]}}, voiced alveolar implosive
• {{IPA|[ɗ̥ ]}} or {{IPA|[tʼ↓]}} voiceless alveolar implosive (very rare)

Note that alveolar and dental stops are not always carefully distinguished. Acoustically, the two types of sounds are similar, and it is rare for a language to have both types.

If necessary, an alveolar consonant can be transcribed with the combining equals sign below {{angbr IPA|◌͇}}, as with {{angbr IPA|t͇}} for the voiceless alveolar stop. A dental consonant can be transcribed with the combining bridge below {{angbr IPA|t̪}}, and a postalveolar consonant with the retraction diacritic, the combining minus sign below {{angbr IPA|t̠}}.