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Linguistics & Grammar vocabulary · Phonetics and Phonology

Place of articulation

Meaning in linguistics & grammar, with examples

nounCommon term

In linguistics & grammar, place of articulation means: The point in the mouth or throat where the airflow is blocked or narrowed to make a consonant, such as the two lips for /p/ or the teeth for /θ/.

In Turkish: boğumlanma yeri, çıkış yeri

How it is used

Together with voicing and manner of articulation, it is one of the three labels used to describe consonants: bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, velar, glottal and so on. Teachers use mouth diagrams to show it.

Example sentences

  1. /θ/ and /s/ differ in place of articulation: for /θ/ the tongue touches the teeth.

  2. Label each consonant on the chart with its place of articulation.

Common collocations

  • manner of articulation
  • place and manner of articulation
  • articulatory phonetics
  • point of articulation
  • consonantA speech sound made by partly or completely blocking the air in the mouth or throat, such as /p/, /s/ or /m/; also a letter that usually spells such a sound.
  • voicedDescribes a speech sound produced while the vocal folds vibrate, such as /b/, /d/, /z/ and all vowels; sounds made without this vibration are voiceless.
  • phoneticsThe branch of linguistics that studies speech sounds as physical events: how the mouth and throat produce them, how they travel and how the ear perceives them.
  • IPAShort for International Phonetic Alphabet: a set of symbols in which each symbol stands for one speech sound, used to write down pronunciation in any language.

More terms: Phonetics and Phonology

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