consonantsarticulated

Consonants articulated is a term used in phonetics to describe consonant sounds produced with constriction or closure in the vocal tract. Analyses of these sounds focus on three primary dimensions: place of articulation (where the constriction occurs), manner of articulation (how the airflow is modified), and voicing (whether the vocal cords vibrate). Additional properties such as aspiration, nasal coupling, and secondary articulations may shape the sound.

Consonants are classified by place of articulation into categories such as bilabial (two lips), labiodental (lip and teeth), dental (teeth), alveolar (tongue tip at the alveolar ridge), postalveolar, palatal, velar, uvular, and glottal. Some languages also use rare places like epilaryngeal. Manner of articulation includes stops (plosives), fricatives, nasals, approximants, trill or tap, and affricates. Voiceless consonants are produced without vocal cord vibration, while voiced consonants involve vibration. Aspiration is an extra breath released after voicing onset, common with voiceless plosives in many languages.

In addition to these categories, consonants may have secondary articulations such as labialization, palatalization, velarization, pharyngealization, or nasalization, which modify the emitted sound. The study of consonants spans languages worldwide and informs fields from linguistics and speech-language pathology to language teaching. IPA symbols provide a compact notation for the diverse consonantal repertoire, enabling cross-language comparison.