Stopconsonants

Stopconsonants are a class of consonants produced by obstructing the airflow in the vocal tract and then releasing it. This obstruction is typically made by bringing two speech organs together, such as the lips, tongue, and palate. The release of the air creates a burst of sound. In phonetics, stop consonants are also known as plosives or occlusives. The most common stop consonants in many languages are those produced at the bilabial, alveolar, and velar places of articulation.

Bilabial stops involve the closure of the lips. Examples include the sounds represented by 'p' and 'b' in English. Alveolar stops are made by touching the tip or blade of the tongue to the alveolar ridge, the part of the roof of the mouth just behind the upper teeth. The sounds represented by 't' and 'd' in English are alveolar stops. Velar stops are produced by raising the back of the tongue to the soft palate. The sounds represented by 'k' and 'g' in English are velar stops.

Stop consonants can be further classified by their voicing. Voiced stops are produced with vibration of the vocal cords, while voiceless stops are produced without vocal cord vibration. For instance, 'b', 'd', and 'g' are voiced stops, while 'p', 't', and 'k' are their voiceless counterparts. The manner in which the airflow is released also distinguishes different types of stops, though the term "stop" generally implies a complete closure and subsequent release. Other, less common, stop consonants exist in various languages, involving different places of articulation or modifications to the release.