articulator

An articulator is a mechanical device that models the movements of the jaw and the spatial relationship between the upper and lower dental arches. In dentistry, articulators hold and manipulate dental casts to study occlusion and to plan and fabricate restorations and dentures.

Dental articulators range from simple hinge devices to semi-adjustable and fully adjustable models. Simple articulators simulate opening and closing, while semi-adjustable units include adjustable condylar guidance and incisal guidance to better reflect jaw movements. Fully adjustable articulators allow precise replication of a patient’s protrusive and lateral movements. A facebow is used to record the spatial relation of the maxilla to the hinge axis and transfers it to the articulator, improving accuracy. Casts are mounted on the articulator for occlusal analysis, diagnostic work, and trial fitting before procedures are performed in the mouth. While valuable, articulators cannot perfectly replicate neuromuscular control, tissue elasticity, or dynamic muscle function.

In linguistics and speech science, the term articulator also refers to the organs of speech or to devices that model them. Physical articulators include the tongue, lips, teeth, palate, and glottis, while experimental devices can be mechanical or computational models that illustrate or measure articulatory configurations during speech. Such articulators support research on consonant and vowel production, coarticulation, and speech synthesis, and are central to theories of articulatory phonology.

The word is used across disciplines to denote mechanisms or models that represent movements or configurations involved in producing sound, whether during chewing and biting or during speaking.