artikulatorisch

Artikulatorisch refers to the articulation of speech sounds and to the study of how the human vocal tract produces phonetic segments. In linguistics, it is a domain of articulatory phonetics, examining the movements and configurations of speech organs—collectively called articulators—to realize consonants and vowels.

Active articulators include the tongue (tip, blade, dorsum), lips, and glottis; passive ones include the teeth, hard palate, and alveolar ridge. Articulators coordinate to produce places of articulation (bilabial, labiodental, interdental, alveolar, postalveolar, velar, glottal) and manners (plosive, fricative, nasal, trill, approximant). Voicing is a phonation parameter.

Vowels are produced with relatively open configurations and are described by height, backness and rounding. Consonants and vowels are analyzed by features such as [+voiced], [+nasal], and [+consonantal], and the study considers how articulatory timing and coarticulation shape phonological systems.

Articulatory research uses methods such as ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), X-ray cineradiography, palatography, and electropalatography to observe tongue position, lip rounding and other gestures in real time. These data inform transcription, phonology, and the development of speech technologies.

Applications include linguistics, speech-language pathology, and speech synthesis and recognition, where knowledge of articulation guides therapy, phonetic transcription, and automated voice technologies. Cross-language variation and historical development are also studied to understand how articulatory settings contribute to phoneme inventories and sound change.