articulators

Articulators are devices or structures involved in the production and study of speech sounds. Broadly, they include the movable parts of the human vocal tract—such as the lips, tongue, mandible, velum, and glottis—that actively shape airflow and resonance—and mechanical devices that imitate these movements for analysis, teaching, or clinical work.

In articulatory phonetics, researchers describe how combinations of articulators produce distinct sounds by changing constriction place, degree of closure, and voicing. Movements of the jaw, tongue, lips, and soft palate modify the vocal tract’s cross-section and length, influencing the resulting acoustic signal. Imaging methods like ultrasound, MRI, or X-ray fluoroscopy, and direct measurement with electropalatography, are used to track articulator positions during speech. In speech synthesis, articulatory models map specified articulator configurations to synthesized sounds, providing a more physically grounded alternative to purely acoustic models.

Dental articulators are a related use of the term in dentistry. They simulate jaw movement and occlusion for diagnosis and treatment planning. A dental articulator holds plaster or digital casts of the upper and lower dental arches and may range from simple hinge devices to semi-adjustable or fully adjustable models. They reproduce jaw opening, lateral movement, and incisal guidance, aiding prosthodontics, orthodontics, and restorative dentistry.

In other contexts, the term can describe devices that mimic movement for animation, robotics, or speech training. Across uses, articulators serve to reproduce or study the geometry and dynamics of the human articulatory system, aiding analysis, design, and practical applications.