Coronal consonant

Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical (using the tongue tip), laminal (using the tongue blade), domed (with the tongue bunched up), or sub-apical (with the tongue curled back), as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such dexterity. Coronals also have another dimension, grooved, that is used to make sibilants in combination with the orientations above.

Coronal places of articulation include the dental consonants at the upper teeth, the alveolar consonants at the upper gum (the alveolar ridge), the various postalveolar consonants (domed palato-alveolar, laminal alveolo-palatal, and apical retroflex) just behind that, and the true retroflex consonants curled back against the hard palate.

(The list below is missing linguolabial, alveolo-palatal and retroflex consonants)

IPA Symbol	Name of the consonant	Example	IPA
z	Voiced alveolar fricative	zoo	/zuː/
s	Voiceless alveolar fricative	sea	/siː/
ð	Voiced dental fricative	that	/ðæt/
θ	Voiceless dental fricative	thud	/θʌd/
ʒ	Voiced postalveolar fricative	vision	/vɪʒən/
ʃ	Voiceless postalveolar fricative	she	/ʃiː/
n	Alveolar nasal	name	/neɪm/
d	Voiced alveolar plosive	day	/deɪ/
t	Voiceless alveolar plosive	tea	/tiː/
ɹ	Alveolar approximant	reef	/ɹiːf/
l	Lateral alveolar approximant	lift	/lɪft/
r	Alveolar trill	Spanish perro	/pero/
ɾ	Alveolar tap	Spanish pero	/peɾo/

See also

• Apical consonant
• Laminal consonant
• Place of articulation
• List of phonetics topics

References