Voiceless alveolar plosive

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IPA – number	103
IPA – text	t
IPA – image
Entity	t
X-SAMPA	t
Kirshenbaum	t
Sound sample (help·info)

The voiceless alveolar plosive 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 plosives is t, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t. The dental version can be distinguished with the underbridge diacritic (t̪; see voiceless dental plosive), and the Extended IPA has 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. The only languages known without a [t] are Hawaiian (outside of Ni‘ihau; Hawaiian uses a glottal stop as a 'replacement'), and colloquial Samoan, which also lacks an [n].^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Features 2 Varieties of the voiceless alveolar plosive 3 Occurrence 4 See also

[edit] Features

Features of the voiceless alveolar plosive:

• Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
• Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

[edit] Varieties of the voiceless alveolar plosive

IPA	Description
t	tenuis t
tʰ	aspirated t
tʲ	palatalized t
tʷ	labialized t
ⁿt	prenasalized t
tˁ	pharyngealized t
t̚	unreleased t
tʼ	ejective t

[edit] Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Czech		toto	[toto]	'this'	See Czech phonology
Dutch		taal	[taːl]	'language'	See Dutch phonology
English		tick	[tʰɪk]	'tick'	See English phonology
Finnish		parta	[pɑrtɑ]	'beard'	See Finnish phonology
French		tordu	[tɔʀdy]	'crooked'	See French phonology
German		Tochter	[ˈtʰɔxtɐ]	'daughter'	See German phonology
Greek		τρία	[ˈtria]	'three'	See Modern Greek phonology
Hungarian		tutaj	[tutɒj]	'raft'	See Hungarian phonology
Japanese		特別/tokubetsu	[tokɯbetsɯ]	'special'	See Japanese phonology
Mandarin		大/dà	[ta˥˩]	'big'	Contrasts with aspirated form. See Standard Mandarin
Norwegian		tann	[tɑn]	'tooth'	See Norwegian phonology
Swedish		tåg	[ˈtʰoːg]	'train'	See Swedish phonology
Thai		ตา	[taː]	'eye'
Vietnamese		ti	[ti]	'flaw, defect'	See Vietnamese phonology

[edit] See also

• List of phonetics topics

Consonants (List, table)	See also: IPA, Vowels
Pulmonics Bilabial Lab'den. Dental Alveolar Postalv. Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn. Epiglottal Glottal Non-pulmonics and other symbols Nasals m ɱ n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ Plosives p b p̪ b̪ t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Implo­­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ Fricatives  ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Ejec­­tives  pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ Approximants  ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Affricates  t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ t͡ɕ d͡ʑ t͡ʂ d͡ʐ t͡ɬ Trills ʙ r • ʀ • Other laterals  ɺ ɫ Flaps & Taps • ѵ ɾ ɽ • Co-articulated fricatives  ɕ ʑ ɧ Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ • • • Co-articulated approximants  ʍ w ɥ Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.