Voiceless dental and alveolar stops

Voiceless dental and alveolar stops
t
IPA Number	103
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	t
Unicode (hex)	U+0074
X-SAMPA	t
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The voiceless alveolar stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar stops is ⟨t⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t. The dental stop can be distinguished with the underbridge diacritic, ⟨t̪⟩, the postalveolar with a retraction line, ⟨t̠⟩, and the Extensions to the IPA have a double underline diacritic which can be used to explicitly specify an alveolar pronunciation, ⟨t͇⟩.

The [t] sound is a very common sound cross-linguistically; the most common consonant phonemes of the world's languages are [t], [k] and [p]. Most languages have at least a plain [t], and some distinguish more than one variety. Some languages without a [t] are Hawaiian (except for Ni‘ihau; Hawaiian uses a voiceless velar stop when adopting loanwords with [t]), colloquial Samoan (which also lacks an [n]), and Nǁng of South Africa.

Features

Here are features of the voiceless alveolar stop:

• Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a stop.
• There are four specific variants of [t]:
  • Dental, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the upper teeth, termed respectively apical and laminal.
  • Denti-alveolar, which means it is articulated with the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, and the tip of the tongue behind upper teeth.
  • Alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
  • Postalveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Voiceless dental stop
t̪
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Dental or denti-alveolar

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Aleut		tiistax̂	[t̪iːstaχ]	'dough'	Laminal denti-alveolar.
Armenian	Eastern	տուն	<phonos file="tun.ogg">[t̪un]</phonos>	'house'	Laminal denti-alveolar.
Belarusian		стагоддзе	[s̪t̪äˈɣod̪d̪͡z̪ʲe]	'century'	Laminal denti-alveolar. See Belarusian phonology
Basque		toki	[t̪oki]	'place'	Laminal denti-alveolar.
Bengali		তুমি	[t̪umi]	'you'	Laminal denti-alveolar, contrasts with aspirated form. See Bengali phonology
Catalan		tothom	[t̪uˈt̪ɔm]	'everyone'	Laminal denti-alveolar. See Catalan phonology
Chinese	Hakka	他 ta3	[t̪ʰa˧]	'he/she'	Laminal denti-alveolar, contrasts with an unaspirated form.
Dinka		mɛth	[mɛ̀t̪]	'child'	Laminal denti-alveolar, contrasts with alveolar /t/.
Dutch	Belgian	taal	[t̪aːl̪]	'language'	Laminal denti-alveolar.
English	Dublin	thin	[t̪ʰɪn]	'thin'	Laminal denti-alveolar, corresponds to [θ] in other dialects; in Dublin it may be [t͡θ] instead. See English phonology
	Indian
	Southern Irish
	Ulster	train	[t̪ɹeːn]	'train'	Laminal denti-alveolar. Allophone of /t/ before /r/, in free variation with an alveolar stop.
Finnish		tutti	[ˈt̪ut̪ːi]	'pacifier'	Laminal denti-alveolar. See Finnish phonology
French		tordu	[t̪ɔʁd̪y]	'crooked'	Laminal denti-alveolar. See French phonology
Hindustani		तीन / تین	[t̪iːn]	'three'	Laminal denti-alveolar. Contrasts with aspirated form. See Hindustani phonology
Indonesian		tabir	[t̪abir]	'curtain'	Laminal denti-alveolar.
Italian		tale	[ˈt̪ale]	'such'	Laminal denti-alveolar. See Italian phonology
Kashubian					Laminal denti-alveolar.
Kyrgyz		туз	[t̪us̪]	'salt'	Laminal denti-alveolar.
Latvian		tabula	[ˈt̪äbulä]	'table'	Laminal denti-alveolar. See Latvian phonology
Mapudungun		füṯa	[ˈfɘt̪ɜ]	'husband'	Interdental.
Marathi		तबला	[t̪əbˈlaː]	'tabla'	Laminal denti-alveolar, contrasts with aspirated form. See Marathi phonology
Nunggubuyu		[t̪aɾaɡ]		'whiskers'	Laminal denti-alveolar.
Pazeh		[mut̪apɛt̪aˈpɛh]		'keep clapping'	Dental.
Polish		tom	<phonos file="Pl-tom.ogg">[t̪ɔm]</phonos>	'volume'	Laminal denti-alveolar. See Polish phonology
Portuguese	Many dialects	montanha	[mõˈt̪ɐɲɐ]	'mountain'	Laminal denti-alveolar. Likely to have allophones among native speakers, as it may affricate to [tʃ], [tɕ] and/or [ts] in certain environments. See Portuguese phonology
Punjabi		ਤੇਲ	[t̪eːl]	'oil'	Laminal denti-alveolar.
Russian		толстый	[ˈt̪ʷo̞ɫ̪s̪t̪ɨ̞j]	'fat'	Laminal denti-alveolar. See Russian phonology
Slovene		tip	[t̪íːp]	'type'	Laminal denti-alveolar.
Spanish		tango	[ˈt̪ãŋɡo̞]	'tango'	Laminal denti-alveolar. See Spanish phonology
Swedish		tåg	[ˈt̪ʰoːɡ]	'train'	Laminal denti-alveolar. See Swedish phonology
Temne				--	Dental.
Turkish		at	[ät̪]	'horse'	Laminal denti-alveolar. See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian		брат	[brɑt̪]	'brother'	Laminal denti-alveolar. See Ukrainian phonology
Uzbek			--		Laminal denti-alveolar. Slightly aspirated before vowels.
Vietnamese		tuần	[t̪wən˨˩]	'week'	Laminal denti-alveolar, contrasts with aspirated form. See Vietnamese phonology
Zapotec	Tilquiapan	tant	[t̪ant̪]	'so much'	Laminal denti-alveolar.

Alveolar

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe		тфы	<phonos file="Tfa.ogg">[tfə]</phonos>	'five'
Arabic	Egyptian	توكة tōka	[ˈtoːkæ]	'barrette'	See Egyptian Arabic phonology
	Standard	تين tīn	[tiːn]	'fig'	Articulation may be alveolar or dental depending on the speaker's native dialect. See Arabic phonology
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic		[bet̪a]		'house'	Most speakers. In the Tyari, Barwari and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic dialects θ is used.
Bengali		টাকা	[t̠aka]	Taka	True alveolar in eastern dialects, apical post-alveolar in western dialects. See Bengali phonology.
Czech		toto	[ˈtoto]	'this'	See Czech phonology
Danish	Standard	dåse	[ˈtɔ̽ːsə]	'can (n.)'	Usually transcribed /d̥/ or /d/. Contrasts with the affricate [t͡s] or aspirated stop [tʰ] (depending on the dialect), which are usually transcribed /tˢ/ or /t/. See Danish phonology
Dutch		taal	[taːɫ]	'language'	See Dutch phonology
English	Most speakers	tick	[tʰɪk]	'tick'	See English phonology
	New York				Varies between apical and laminal, with the latter being predominant.
Finnish		parta	[ˈpɑrtɑ]	'beard'	Allophone of the voiceless dental stop. See Finnish phonology
Hebrew		תמונה	[tmuna]	'image'	see Modern Hebrew phonology
Hungarian		tutaj	[ˈtutɒj]	'raft'	See Hungarian phonology
Japanese		特別 tokubetsu	[tokɯbetsɯ]	'special'	See Japanese phonology
Kabardian		тхуы	<phonos file="Kbd-txho.oga">[txʷə]</phonos>	'five'
Korean		턱 teok	[tʰʌk̚]	'jaw'	See Korean phonology
Luxembourgish		dënn	[tɵ̞n]	'thin'	Less often voiced [d]. It is usually transcribed /d/, and it contrasts with voiceless aspirated form, which is usually transcribed /t/. See Luxembourgish phonology
Malay		tahun	[tähon]	'year'	See Malay phonology
Maltese		tassew	[tasˈsew]	'true'
Mapudungun		füta	[ˈfɘtɜ]	'elderly person'
Nunggubuyu		[taɾawa]		'greedy'
Nuosu		ꄉ da	[ta˧]	'place'	Contrasts aspirated and unaspirated forms
Portuguese	Some dialects	troço	[ˈtɾɔsu]	'thing' (pejoratively)	Allophone before alveolar /ɾ/. In other dialects /ɾ/ takes a denti-alveolar allophone instead. See Portuguese phonology
Thai		ตา ta	[taː˥˧]	'eye'
Vietnamese		ti	[ti]	'flaw'	See Vietnamese phonology
West Frisian		tosk	[ˈtosk]	'tooth'

Variable

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
English	Broad South African	talk	[toːk]	'talk'	Laminal denti-alveolar for some speakers, alveolar for other speakers.
	Scottish		[tʰɔk]
	Welsh		[tʰɒːk]
German	Standard	Tochter	[ˈtɔxtɐ]	'daughter'	Varies between laminal denti-alveolar, laminal alveolar and apical alveolar. See Standard German phonology
Greek		τρία tria	[ˈtria]	'three'	Varies between dental, laminal denti-alveolar and alveolar, depending on the environment. See Modern Greek phonology
Norwegian	Standard Eastern	dans	[t̻ɑns]	'dance'	Varies between laminal denti-alveolar and laminal alveolar. It is usually transcribed /d/. It may be partially voiced [d̥], and it contrasts with voiceless aspirated form, which is usually transcribed /t/. See Norwegian phonology
Persian		توت	[tut]	'berry'	Varies between laminal denti-alveolar and apical alveolar. See Persian phonology
Slovak		to	[t̻o̞]	'that'	Varies between laminal denti-alveolar and laminal alveolar. See Slovak phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles